If there are still any doubters out there that President Obama is about to crush the GOP fiscal cliff slope position like a bug underneath a small moon, please factor in Jennifer Rubin’s assessment that he’s been checkmated by Orange Julius. She bleats:
The White House is acting like it had no “plan B” in the “fiscal cliff” fight. Ever since House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he would put to a vote a measure to extend all current tax rates except those for households making more than $1 million, the president and his advisers have been apoplectic. How dare he offer something Senate Democrats once approved! Protect all but millionaires?! The Democrats’ ire is as intense as it is nonsensical, and Republicans are openly mocking the White House.
The White House Plan B? It’s called “Well okay, and then we do nothing and tax rates go up on everyone to Clinton-era levels, and then the Senate passes a bill to cut taxes on the middle class, fix the AMT, payroll taxes, federal jobless benefits and the rest of the end-of-year stuff, and then dare the GOP to refuse to lower taxes.” It’s been that way the entire time, Jennifer. Pay attention, please. Republicans automatically lose on January 1.
At any rate, the House will pass its bills and send them to the Senate. Poor Senate Dems will actually have to vote on something. This should be interesting to see what they come up with.
They sure will.
In January. She really is quite special, our Jennifer.
Yutsano
Funny part? THE SENATE ALREADY DID THAT. Obama is just waiting on Boehner to get his rowdy caucus folk into some semblance of order, which he knows won’t happen because the AOS couldn’t herd sheep with two border collies and a whistle.
Sad_Dem
Give her some credit. It takes a lot of work and expertise to be wrong 100% of the time.
Mudge
Refresh my memory. What was the Republican “Plan A”?
And maybe the House would like to have something to vote on, like the already passed Senate bill lowering middle class taxes that Boner is sitting on.
dmsilev
What will be truly amusing to watch is if the various conservative groups like the Club For Growth et al. manage to get enough GOP reps to vote no to scuttle Plan B. What happens then? Does Boehner fall on his (metaphorical) sword?
Not a huge amount of time left.
Linda Featheringill
So if Jennifer is always wrong, maybe I should follow her column to see what is NOT gonna happen.
c u n d gulag
If Rubin and Kristol are ever right, we might not have to wait for any comet, or that Mayan Apocalypse!
General Stuck
Idiots on the right. Idiots on the left.
The Cuckcoo Clock never sleeps.
dmsilev
@Linda Featheringill: But what happens if she predicts one thing and Bill Kristol predicts the opposite?
Do we have to accelerate both of them to near light speed and collide them to see what sort of fundamental moron particles are emitted? Even if we don’t have to, can we do so anyway?
Villago Delenda Est
In case you haven’t noticed, Jennifer Rubin is a fascist fucktard.
Just in case you haven’t noticed.
Tim I
I think ‘Plan B’ may not make it through the House. Boehner seems to be desperately hunting for votes. He’s even modifying the Bill on the fly to grab every vote he can get. This thing may end up as a pork sandwich as well as a tax increase for millionaires. Heritage and the Club for Growth crazies are threatening primaries for anyone who votes with the Speaker.
catclub
“Senate Dems will actually have to vote on something.”
Just like the House HAD to vote on the Senate Bill holding taxes down for everyone under $250k/yr.
Maude
Reid said the Senate won’t be taking up any House fiscal cliff bills.
Back to square one.
dr. bloor
I’d recommend protective headgear at all times, but I fear it’s a little too late.
Comrade Jake
It’s like she read McArdle’s post this week and thought “Hey, wait a minute, I can top that!”
Frankensteinbeck
@dmsilev:
From watching the election, I learned that Rubin will predict something obviously wrong, and Kristol will predict something so wildly, imaginatively wrong you will go ‘Huh?’ Rubin thought Romney had it locked in. Kristol thought Romney would step aside for Palin to win the election.
TenguPhule
Where the Senate Democratic majority will examine it, laugh at the misspellings and insane amendments then quietly put it out of its misery with an assisted suicide and quick burial.
TenguPhule
Reality will take a third option.
Smiling Mortician
@Tim I:
He’s desperately hunting for something, anyway. My favorite video clip of the week is the one Rachel put on a mini-loop last night of Boehner saying that he sure hopes the president “gets serious” soon. The look on his face is exactly the same one I had when I was five and had chocolate syrup dripping down my chin while insisting that I hadn’t been drinking syrup.
Joel
Sequestration will have real consequences and not just for the military… But yea, Obama has a strong hand, here.
Mike E
My gawd, have the bright demonic orange flames been burning ever so high at GOS. Our president is just too cool for all this mess.
@Tim I: He’s so very orange, it no longer suits him, really.
quannlace
I’m surprised she hasn’t penned her own theory on what should have happened at Sandy Hook school. We’ve had six years olds acting as their own Swat team: the call for more manly-men being on the scene to save the day for all those fluttery females.
Who knows what Rubin could come up with?
Patricia Kayden
@Joel: I hope President Obama knows that and acts as if he has a strong hand instead of throwing SS and Medicare on the woodpile.
General Stuck
Jennifer is gonna haz a sad when Boner can’t even pass a million dollar cutoff deal for higher taxes. She doesn’t really have a clue about the republican cave men currently in the House majority. I just heard this morn, one of the tea tard House nutters poo poo even the Norquist green flag for Plan B.
And left wingers are afraid whatever it is that Obama has offered might pass? It is clown hour all around, and fitting for the silly season, where Christmas and lame duck congresses meet on tax issues. You could do better slamming a fifth of bourbon, burning a doobie, then figuring out the meaning of life.
Villago Delenda Est
OK, I think I’ve figured it out.
Jennifer Rubin’s mission in life is to destroy that old stereotype of Jewish women being intelligent.
FormerSwingVoter
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that Republicans will magically become reasonable in January. This will be primarily driven by the media, who will finally start to point out that Republican intransigence is causing the problem, rather than a “failure to compromise” from “both sides”. And also the outrage that people have towards Republicans over not cutting a deal, despite the fact that said outrage didn’t appear when they legalized murder and reinstated Jim Crow.
And that January deal? It’ll all be in there. Tax cuts for everyone under $250k. Payroll cut extension. Unemployment extensions and infrastructure investment. Cutting or removing all non-military portions of the sequester. Permanent Doc Fix and AMT fix. All of it.
And afterwards, we’ll all frolic with unicorns in the Lollipop Kingdom, blowing bubbles of happiness and riding along rainbows until the cows come home.
Frankensteinbeck
@Patricia Kayden:
He didn’t do it when they held all the cards. He’s got this.
General Stuck
@Frankensteinbeck:
Nevermind. Some folks like getting freaked out. Same phenomenon that sustains the B movie horror film genre.
Hoodie
@General Stuck: Strikes me that Boehner is like the guy that lists his house for 300k instead of 299k. If Plan B passes – which is doubtful – it’s still a tax cut for millionaires, as in “The President offered Speaker Boehner a balanced package of tax cuts for working people and broadly-based spending cuts, and the Speaker’s response was yet another tax cut for millionaires and a budget balanced on the backs of the poor, the elderly and the middle class.”
lyrics4losers
You are more than happy to give that sad excuse for a journalist and her paper some click love just so you can say “see, look what she is doing, read all about it in my post please because the irony that I am part of the problem by drawing attention to these clowns is somehow lost on me in my blind obsession trying to do the same thing for myself”
charon
But…
What’s good for Fox News? What’s good for Drudge? Limbaugh?
That’s what you need to know to see how this will play out.
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2012/12/sailing-away-to-irrelevance-epilogue-in-which-the-gop-is-finally-and-inevitably-made-irrelevant/
Cermet
Will the little orange one managed to round up enough democrats to make up for all the teabaggers who will vote against Plan B (some due to thinking it is ‘that other’ Plan B … )? That is the real question.
Joey Maloney
@dmsilev:
Norman, coordinate!
redshirt
Wither thou Firebaggers? I’m feeling the need for a moral cleansing.
General Stuck
@Hoodie:
Yes, you take out all the ancillary tax breaks for the poor from Obama that are set to expire, like the payroll tax holiday, amongst others, along with the meager revenue with a cutoff of one million for the wealthy, and it actually is a tax increase of shifting tax burden for the 99 percent. And IT STILL LIKELY WON’T GET PASSED BY THE HOUSE WINGNUTS. Sad and sorry state of play we are in, but in it we are.
curiousleo
Serious question:
How does she still have a job after admitting that she outright lied to make the GOP look better in her election reporting?
charon
@charon:
here is an excerpt from my link above…
rda909
She’s going to wish she had some Plan B the morning after January 1st.
Laertes
@curiousleo:
I suppose that must be her job.
Corner Stone
@dmsilev:
There’s something about relative density in this problem that I haven’t been able to quite identify yet.
Napoleon
I guess she does not understand that Harry doesn’t need to bring it to the floor.
LAC
that twat has been on a bender since November 6th. That has been her plan B.
qwerty42
Well, President Romney will be all for cutting more spending! and against any tax cuts! because, magic!
Isn’t that what Jennifer has assured us?
Raven
@curiousleo: Feature, not a bug.
ruemara
@Patricia Kayden: Shut up. really. Just shut up with that bullshit liberal common wisdom.
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S.
It pisses me off no end that a supposedly good newspaper pays this woman to write [sic] for her. I’ve written to the ombudsman about it.
I mean, hell, if they want to pay some pathetic hack to write press releases for the Rmoney campaign–as she did all the last year–or for the Republican Party–as she’s doing now–then I think it’s a waste of money and it makes them look bad. But what the hell, I don’t own the paper, so they can do what they want.
But when they let her pass off her drivel as reporting, which is how she tries to make it come across, then I think they’re behaving unethically. She isn’t all that much worse than, oh, let’s say, Charles Krauthammer, but he doesn’t try to come off as a reporter, he just does commentary. But they hired this woman as a conservative to offset the liberal reporting of Greg Sargent. Now, he does have a slant, and he’s open about it, but he does do actual reporting. You might learn something you didn’t know reading his stuff. Rubin just editorializes and then tries to make it look like reporting. That’s an outrage, or at least it should be.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@curiousleo:
The soft bigotry of conservatard expectations. AKA, Hyatt’s House of Neocon Pancakes has booths to fill so this is no time to be firing the chef, even if she is crazy stupid and keeps serving up the scrapings from the ventilation hood and calling it snausages.
Lee
OT:
From this article on CNN
How about it?
Suffern ACE
Apoplectic? Really?
Percysowner
@Mudge:
Presumably having Romney win the election and taking back the Senate. Or having the President fold like a cheap suit and give into the Republican’s every wish.
Mnemosyne
@Mudge:
The Ryan plan. And, strangely, despite what they had been assured would happen by commentators on both the left and the right, the president didn’t take the bait. Who knew?
Phil Perspective
@Smiling Mortician: Hunting for his bottle of scotch? Is he a single malt guy? Blended malt?
? Martin
@Patricia Kayden:
They really can’t be trusted, can they?
some guy
Plan B is to jump.
Jump, fuckers
chris
@dmsilev:
Fundamental Moron Particles FTW!
trollhattan
Special Jenn still thinks Willard has a Special Plan to win the White House.
Am thinking the WaPo Christmas Party must be the awfulest social event of the decade, each year. “Here’s your seat, between Ruben and Krauthammer.”
“Aaaaaaah!” [stabs self with salad fork.]
pillsy
And of course Reid has announced he’s not even going to bring the “Plan B” nonsense to a vote if it passes the House. I still can’t fathom why anybody thinks he would.
kindness
Someone out there, write a pop-up book titled:
How Can I Be Wrong On Every Topic & Keep Getting Paid.
So you could sell it at Net Roots and that is about it but oh the joy in the pics you could pick for the pop-ups.
@trollhattan: “Here’s your seat, between Ruben and Krauthammer.” Solution? Eat lots and lots of beans before hand and smile widely the entire event.
some guy
once they jump, then the Dems can offer the tax breaks Obama campaigned on, and ignore the benefit cuts to Social Security Romney campaigned on.
aimai
@? Martin:
Was it the phrase “woodpile” that got you? It kind of jumped out at me.
aimai
Corner Stone
@? Martin:
Politicians? No. They can not.
Corner Stone
@some guy:
But what about the balanced proposal that’s called for here?
some guy
@Corner Stone:
taxing millionaires AND cutting defense budgets is a perfect balance.
Forum Transmitted Disease
She’s wrong about that as well. They can simply refuse to take it up. And will.
Ted_75
Does anyone really think the GOP is going to cave on the debt ceiling though? That seems to be the next crisis unfortunately.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@charon:
From your link:
Wait… we have a propaganda machine? Really?
I assume the article refers to a certain cable news network with two center-left hosts on weeknights, and a former GOP Congressman on for three hours every morning.
If that’s the left’s “propaganda machine”, then we seriously need to ask for our money back.
ETA: There’s nothing particularly wrong (or original) with the article’s main thesis. I just found the earnestness with which the ‘both sides do it’ meme was injected into the article to be… amusing.
The Other Chuck
@Phil Perspective: Orange Julius strikes me as a bourbon man.
nemesis
Its Orange Foolius. And he will get the votes, because he and his caucus know their Plan B is DOA in the Senate.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Patricia Kayden: Nice. “Woodpile”.
Knew you were a concern troll. Didn’t think you were one of “those” kind of trolls.
Oh well.
Frankensteinbeck
@nemesis:
You are assuming his caucus is capable of strategy or rational planning of any kind. These are, as they say, facts not in evidence.
? Martin
@aimai:
Yes. I can only think of one phrase that uses the word ‘woodpile’. I think that word slipped in there subconsciously. Kinda ironic, actually.
dmsilev
via TPM, apparently FreedomWorks has just said no-deal to Plan B. That’s the third, I think, major right-wing group to start lobbying against it (including threats of primary challenges to GOPpers voting yes).
Now I’m starting to wonder if there will even be a vote this evening.
Regnad Kcin
@dmsilev: That’s Higgs Moron to you
nemesis
Orange Foolius is desperately looking for a path to lay the whole debacle at Obama’s feet. A partisan House vote, with the eventual Senate non-action, provides Foolius the last best outcome, since he cant let the world inside his caucus clusterfuck. Most American arent paying attention, so they will, with the help of media, blame “both side” equally.
Is Plan B anything like Plan R?
jl
How much evidence is there that Boehner can get his GOP only majority to pass his own plan B counter proposal? Not much. I think Club for Growth nixed it, and now TPM says Freedom Works yanked its initial support.
Boehner could solve the fiscal cliff problem immediately with something that could pass the House with bipartisan support, judging from the GOPers who are willing to defect from crazy town.
For some reason, Boehner is given a free ride on his approach to passing legislation in the House. Has anyone questioned Boehner on his partisan approach to passing legislation?
? Martin
So, Obama is running around with a +19 net approval. Congressional Republicans have a net -45 approval.
And Boehner thinks that he has any standing here?
jl
@nemesis:
Plan B: Dishonest GOP BS that aborts itself with no overt procedure necessary. Great name, poor taste. Perfect product for the modern version of the GOP to peddle.
PsiFighter37
Orange Julius and the Idiot caucus are thinking if they scream loud enough and wet the bed, they’ll get their way. The only thing this will do is piss off his base and make them worry about getting elected. The analog is the climate change bill in 2009, when Pelosi made her members waste a good chunk of political capital on something that never had the Senate votes.
Roger Moore
@curiousleo:
That’s what her employer wanted.
Mnemosyne
@? Martin:
I didn’t recognize it, but as soon as I Googled “woodpile phrase,” it was the very first result. WT fucking F?
catclub
@Lee: So they go dark on dec 21, and people like you and I will think the world has already come to an end. Good plan!
Then it turns out Tunch rolled over on the routers.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
I think those are called bozons. They explain the properties of bozos.
Brachiator
@nemesis:
Let’s see, now. Boehner’s plan keeps tax rates low for the wealthy and actually cuts some tax benefits for lower income individuals.
This is a winning hand?
What Obama and the Democrats need to do now is explain just a little bit more what is going on. The GOP and their toadies are trying to play the “moocher option,” implying that bad Obama is just trying to help the undeserving 47%.
But if Congress does nothing and lets the Bush tax cuts expire, then a lot of tax breaks for middle income people are either eliminated or significantly reduced.
So the message should go out: The Republicans think that the Child and Dependent Care Credit, the American Opportunity Credit, the Student Loan Interest Deduction and the Child Tax Credit are special loopholes that should be cut back so that millionaires can keep a tax break. If you disagree, send a note to Congressman Boehner.
@Yutsano:
Yeah, I just love this stuff. Boehner and Norquist pretend that they are just waiting for the president to “get serious.” But everybody knows that much of this absolutely must get done and will get done.
This is funnier than the stupid insistence that the “fiscal cliff” is meaningless. And throw in “no AMT patch soon and millions will not be able to file their 2012 tax returns until March” and then you just gotta wonder what Boehner and his GOP goons are smoking?
jl
Well, OK, then. TPM reports that Boehner is accusing Obama of not being able to hold his party together.
Johnny Bones, that cheap two-bit hood, went to far.
The corporate media likes a slam dunk gotcha, and Bones will be asked to explain that joke. Even the Schief, courtly old gracious gas bag that he is (but not the worst debate moderator in the galaxy, I will say that for the old coot) will look like Bogart up against Wilmer (or whoever played Wilmer).
I smell stale cigarette smoke and old booze every time I see a picture of Johnny Bones these days. Is it my imagination, or is he just teleporting it now?
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
With the real irony being that the GOP is trying to help the undeserving 47% that voted for Romney.
gene108
@jl:
Then he’d no longer be Speaker.
The Speaker gets a bit higher pay, a bigger office and I think a bit more staff than the average Congresscritter.
I can understand him not wanting to give up those benefits.
FormerSwingVoter
@jl:
Heh. And when people say “it’s always projection with them”, I used to think it was exaggeration.
Royston Vasey
OT: Hey, the end of the world is quite nice right about now.
A lovely sunny day here in New Zealand – and it’s Friday 21st at 8:41am
Did the Mayans predict which timezone would start the EOTW? or do I have to wait until Saturday?
Southern Beale
Jennifer Rubin really is not very bright. From The Hill:
I saw Rubin mouthing her BS on Chuck Toad’s show earlier today. She’s like Megan McArdle, annoyingly clueless. I can’t believe she makes her fucking salary.
Bobby Thomson
@? Martin: Hmmmm. I myself had never heard that phrase until you guys started freaking out and I hit teh Googol. I’m more familiar with innocuous uses of the word, but it’s disturbing how high that phrase is in the search results. Guess I’ve been sheltered.
jl
@gene108: Because Johnny Bones is a cheap two-bit hood, that’s why.
AxelFoley
@dmsilev:
Would it be like matter and anti-matter colliding?
Roger Moore
@jl:
That would probably cost him the Speakership in the 113th Congress. Cutting a deal with the Democrats on something that important would cost him the wingnuts’ support- Cantor is just waiting for an excuse to stick in the shiv- and there’s no way he could count on the Democrats in an election for Speaker. Maybe it would be best for the country if he tried something like that, but if he actually cared about the country he wouldn’t be a Republican.
Culture of Truth
Club for Growth, Hertiage Foundation both rejected Boehner’s brilliant plan.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Who was on Alex Wagner’s show earlier today, because MSNBC is just a mirror image of Fox.
I hope you’re right, but I’m not optimistic. The one thing Rove and post-Rove Republicans do well is manipulate Politico and all the other heirs of Broder.
MikeJ
@jl:
If Dems don’t vote together they’re in disarray. If they do vote together, they’re thugs that don’t tolerate dissent.
shortstop
@Roger Moore:
Every time I see Boehner at a microphone with Cantor standing gravely just behind him, I wonder if Boehner can feel Cantor’s hot breath on his neck and hear him whisper menacing expressions of “encouragement.”
jl
@shortstop: Sorry, it’s just business.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Driving cross-country a couple weeks ago, listening to a lot of MSNBC and NPR (yeah, I’m a political junkie, and getting old, and pickier about music as I age), somebody was saying that Boehner has become emotionally invested in having a legacy, he wants to be remembered like Tip O’Neill or Sam Rayburn, have a building named after him, etc. Then in the NYT the other day, I read that Obama aides (and I imagine their boss) are increasingly frustrated in these negotiations because Boehner doesn’t really get the issues and the numbers involved, while Boehner looks down on Obama. I have no problem believing that. My own partisan biases aside, I’ve known a lot of Boehners in my life, moderately rich middle-aged guys who think they know everything because they got rich with a small(ish) business.
dmsilev
@shortstop: Part of me thinks of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar whenever I see Boehner and Cantor together, but then I remember that the phrase “he thinks too much; such men are dangerous” would never ever apply to Eric Cantor.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
” Boehner has become emotionally invested in having a legacy, he wants to be remembered like Tip O’Neill or Sam Rayburn, have a building named after him, etc. ”
Acting like a dimwit partisan hack is an odd way to go about it. He is a sad case, in way over his head, if that is true.
But then first time I really understood who this mook was, he was crying for the cameras behind a bunch of school kids trying to protect himself from the fallout of the GOP Congressional sex pervert he and other GOP leaders were shielding (forget the name). In my mind, he has lived up to that high ideal ever since.
AxelFoley
@Mnemosyne:
I’d never heard that phrase, so I Googled it, too.
Fuck you, Patricia, you racist bitch.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@FormerSwingVoter:
“And afterwards, we’ll all frolic with unicorns in the Lollipop Kingdom, blowing bubbles of happiness and riding along rainbows until the cows come home.”
We’ve been doing this since Obama won relection. Where have you been?
Forum Transmitted Disease
It’s an interesting dynamic there, one I think Cantor is totally happy with. He gets to have all the power (and make no mistake, he certainly does) and none of the responsibility.
If he wanted to be Speaker he’d already have the job. Nobody likes Boehner.
Culture of Truth
I think that might true about Boehner, explains why’s whining now that he’s bucked his party, and it’s time for Obama to do the same.
But Boehner’s base is nuts, while Obama’s right and popular, and anyway Boehner’s people all hate his guts and think he’s a mediocre weasel who is about to get rolled by metrosexual abe lincoln and his gay latina base.
catclub
@jl: “Acting like a dimwit partisan hack is an odd way to go about it.”
It worked for Reagan.
El Caganer
Jennifer is delusional. Boner of Orange will be lucky if he can get his crew to pass gas, let alone any sort of bill.
Corner Stone
@Roger Moore:
People keep saying this but I completely disagree. Cantor is an idiot and a narcissist, but he knows his own politics.
And it doesn’t take a genius to see that the next immediate R Speaker will have the exact same problem. The same failures at balancing acts. No Speaker can control this caucus at this point, or maybe for a while.
Why would
CassiusCantor want to be upside down, impaled with suet in his gullet by the mob?Mnemosyne
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Wasn’t that Tom DeLay’s scheme? He got Dennis Hastert elected Speaker and then ruled as the power behind the throne.
ericblair
@shortstop:
“Memento mori.”
Corner Stone
@AxelFoley:
Wait a second. You, the ultimate racist naming warrior, did not know about the problems with the woodpile?
Then maybe, just fucking maybe, Patricia did not either. And she meant the issues were being tossed aside to burn for no reason.
If you, as an ardent asshole, did not recognize this KKK trigger then how in the fuck can you decry that Patricia 100% absolutely had to?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t know. I think that kind of crafty ambition, the kind that is willing to exercise power and let other people have titles and go on TV, is rare in American politics, even rarer is finding a willing and useful front man like Hastert, Reagan or Dumbya. I chuckle whenever I hear someone on TV refer to Boehner following the “Hastert rule” (all votes should be lopsidedly partisan, as if Hastert ever decided anything other than where to call in for lunch.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Mnemosyne: Bingo. The House is replete with such examples of fuckery.
Xenos
Plan B, for the rest of us.
The British do such a better job of class warfare than we are used to seeing.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
RE: The GOP and their toadies are trying to play the “moocher option,” implying that bad Obama is just trying to help the undeserving 47%.
But, but, these are the job creators. Do you know how many people you need to count all that cash moved out of the country into foreign bank accounts?
At least three guys in Bangladesh.
Roger Moore
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I’ve been getting over my hangover from overindulging in wingnut tears.
NR
@Patricia Kayden:
Since he’s already offered Social Security cuts, I wouldn’t hold my breath on this.
Tone in DC
@dmsilev:
LULz.
Bill Nye, Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan’s ghost might find that amusing.
Scott de B.
The Maya did not have the concept of time zones; the day begins at sunrise in Guatemala/the Yucatan.
Smiling Mortician
@Corner Stone:
At first I tried to get this image out of my head. But then I relaxed into it.
LAC
@NR: Jaysus, do you ever not whine about shit that is not happening? “The president did…did this and firedogdumbfuck said….and then Daily Kos said…and the the president offered up ALL OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY PROGRAM IN A BIG BOW, and and and…whaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!….” And scene…
You must be a blast at a christmas party: “Cheers! Hey, I got the cake knife! Anyone want to open a vein?”
AxelFoley
@Corner Stone:
Oh, just so convenient that she uses the phrase, yet she doesn’t know about it being a problem? Highly unlikely, my ultimate troll friend.
If I didn’t know a phrase’s derogatory connotation, I wouldn’t use it. As I’m sure most folks wouldn’t.
Corner Stone
@AxelFoley:
This may be the stupidest thing you’ve ever said. And amigo, that’s covering some territory with a troll like yourself. Fuck off troll.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
Lordy, corner stone calling other folks troll. Flying fishes — and pieces on the ground
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: Fucking trolls everywhere, in every thread. Now go play under your bridge, troll.
Bulworth
All I know is, this is good news for Mitt Romney.
Corner Stone
@Bulworth: Troll!
Mnemosyne
@AxelFoley:
Or, if you innocently used a phrase that you didn’t realize had racist connotations, you would apologize for doing it and promise not to use the phrase again now that you’ve been made aware of its origins.
Bobby Thomson
@Mnemosyne: That makes sense. What NotEddie wrote didn’t.
redshirt
Trolls to the left of me, trolls to the right…
William Burns
@Villago Delenda Est:
Makes sense that she would work for the Washington Post, where Richard Cohen already handles that job for Jewish men.
dollared
delete
dollared
@Mnemosyne: @General Stuck: @AxelFoley: So now that we’ve established that “woodpile” is a bad word, how about we talk about the Republicans being in complete disarray and yet our fucking president has the vanity to cut $40,000 from my retirement so that Bobo will think he’s fucking balanced?
Or are you troll police going to tell me the eleventy dimensional chess reasons why 4 million seniors need to tip over into poverty in the next 15 years due to the chained CPI Social Security cut Obama put on the table?
Mnemosyne
@dollared:
Uh, you realize that if that deal ever really existed, it’s now dead as a doornail, right? Boehner didn’t take it and instead pursued his “Plan B,” which the Senate says it will block and the president says he will veto if it somehow gets through the Senate.
I really don’t understand why you guys get all worked up about phantom deals that never actually materialize. I mean, sure, call your reps and senators and the president and tell them it’s a bad idea, but I don’t get the deep feelings of betrayal over a rumored deal that never actually happens.
lethargytartare
@dollared:
can we cut 40K from your retirement because you’re a dumbfuck?
dollared
@Mnemosyne: Hunh. Jesus. Pelosi endorsed it. You don’t think it’s going to happen, now or January?
Tell you what, you’re so confident, why don’t you offer to make up the 10% missing from my Social Security checks in 2030 if and when chained CPI is implemented?
General Stuck
@dollared:
Why yes, yes we are. Though aided this time by a forthrightly cluster fucked republican party. More like a bracing game of checkers for Obama. It is the republicans scent marking with the chained CPI, the rest is rumor and innuendo up the yazoo. And all of it being Theater of the Absurd. Do you feel better with that spaz for a comment?
General Stuck
@dollared:
Relax, by 2030, you’ll be tooling around in a rickshaw sucking down egg noodles in nuclear winter. If you’re lucky.
dollared
@General Stuck: I dunno. too clever for me. You think the Village is going to forget that Obama promised to cut everything keyed to the CPI? Food stamps? Social Security? OK….
Ohio Mom
@dollared: It’s not just seniors are threatened by this proposal, people with disabilities depend on SS too. Got an email from the ARC the other day urging me to call my Senators and the White House ASAP to tell them not to chain SS benefits. Which I’d already done that morning.
I sure hope this is a false alarm. Don’t want to contemplate what happens if it isn’t.
General Stuck
@dollared:
Obama promised no such thing. Our psycho media did with their unnamed sources that could have been Boehner’s bookie for all we know. The only parts of a formal deal stated by the administration was a ratio of spending cuts per revenues to be raised. And Obama doubling his pre election number from 800 billion to 1.6 trillion post election, and scaling back cuts to about half that. That does not sound like capitulation to me.
Mnemosyne
@dollared:
No, I don’t. At an absolute minimum, it’s not going to happen the way the hysterics are claiming — it would go along with chaining tax brackets to the same CPI, which would make Social Security and taxes march in concert and reduce the effect that only applying chained CPI to Social Security would have.
That’s still better than the 25% that will be missing if nothing at all is done. You do know that the Social Security Administration has been saying for years that they will only pay 75 percent of benefits starting in 2030, right? Read their annual report. Since that’s the case, a 10% percent cut (or, in the more likely scenario, a 3% cut if the chained-CPI is applied all around and not just to Social Security) sounds way better than the 25% cut that’s already been promised.
General Stuck
And for the rest of the pearl clutching left, it is time honored tradition in this country to at least publicly entertain as ‘on the table’ about any kind of bullshit your opponent wants to talk about. It is how the game has been played since the founding. And to bow up with a nolo list to not be discussed, gives the oppo and media the chance to slap the hardened ideologue on your forehead. And it should be obvious per the current republican plight, that that is the kiss of electoral death in this country that hates rigid ideology as the outer face of a political party. When Obama says he is willing to discuss anything, most of it coming from the nutters is mentioned with shits and giggles behind closed doors. The media is always fishing to box one side or the other in with ultimatums of one kind or another. Obama ain’t playing that game, and he has done fairly well so far with it.
Mnemosyne
@dollared:
Though it does amuse me that you’ve already moved the date of CPIpocalypse to January, after which we will all be eating cat food. How many times have you guys promised us that no, seriously, this time Obama is totally going to cut Social Security! No, I swear, this is the real deal this time!
Wake me when the apocalypse gets here. Until then, I give you guys about as much credence as the Mayan Apocalypse.
El Caganer
@Mnemosyne: Nobody expects the Mayan Apocalypse!
dollared
@Mnemosyne: And you should figure this out: do you think in 2033 that Congress will just say “everybody gets a cut of 25% tomorrow?”
Fucking idiot. At least if Obama is going to cut, he could get the money for the rest of this. Jesus you people are just asking to be victims.
And do you understand the actuarial assumptions in the plan? Try reading something and learning something for once: http://www.angrybearblog.com/
Bulworth
So….how’s that Plan B working out for you Jenn?
Bulworth
I wonder if JennR knows that the Internets are able to keep copies of one’s writings from yesterday?