Yesterday, I was absent-mindedly browsing through various opinion pieces and I stumbled across one by Michael Gerson where he was taking someone to task for being insufficiently serious. I wasn’t paying attention to who or what he was talking about and I had a sub-thinking reflex, or whatever the right description is, of “fuck you, I hope this person wins”. Then I read more carefully and I realized he was trashing Sarah Palin for backing Tom Tancredo, so I agreed with him completely. But the smugness still bothered me.
I find I have that reaction more and more. I’m not in a mood to read much of anything today, but I might go over to RedState and see how the gloating is going. That won’t bother me; yes, the RedStaters are frightening, don’t get me wrong, but they’re not that smug. On the other hand, if I have to listen to some pious, quasi-centrist bullshit about liberal overreach, I may kill myself.
I think it’s the same with actual policies: I’m not afraid of a bunch of bullshit resolutions about Sharia law and, while I think government shutdowns/impeachment trials etc. will be awful, I don’t think they’ll rip the fabric of our society. “Entitlement reform” might, though. I doubt the teatards will back “entitlement reform” too strongly, because it could be a real political killer. But expect to hear a lot of pious, quasi-centrist bullshit about “entitlement reform”. Things like the dismantlement of Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid are the real danger here, along with all kinds of new corporatist bullshit that will screw the middle-class. Plenty of “serious people” will back all of it, and that scares me. Michelle Bachmann and the rest are just useful idiots.
jurassicpork
There have been few times, if there ever were any, when I’ve been more ashamed to be an American citizen as I am today and this is why.
Lolis
Yeah, honestly, it seems like most of the new crop of Republicans just want a microphone. They really don’t seem motivated to do much. Apparently, they have plans for hearings on how climate change is a fraud. That’ll be good. I am sure the people expecting them to fix the economy will be really impressed.
aimai
I really wonder what, if anything, the Republican House will do other than hearings and impeachment. I don’t really see them originating any bills at all because bills are damned hard to write and they are kind of out of the business of proposing stuff. On the other hand no doubt the business lobby has tons of stuff it wants the house to put forward but without the Senate and the Presidency its not clear how any of those bills see the light of day and the business lobby is going to get pretty sick, pretty fast, of paying up front for nothing much.
I guess what I’m saying is that the business lobby paid for power. The House without the Senate and the Presidency isn’t enough. Maybe the Republicans are planning to just shut stuff down until 2012 in hopes of destroying Obama but that may not play well with voters even if the money guys are willing to keep paying the tab in hopes of better positioning in 2012.
Still, its never to early to remember how the Dems fucked up a winning hand, so I expect Obama to come out and explain that its all his fault and that he’ll never do anything progressive again and the rest of the remaining Dems in the House and the Senate to offer their full and unconditional capitulation to our new Tea Bag Overlords.
Tell me I’m wrong? Please?
aimai
New Yorker
Not trying to be a concern troll here, but what would you do about the deficit? I think we need to mix tax increases with spending cuts, and those spending cuts are going to have to come from somewhere, namely, the military, medicare, and social security.
Suffern Ace
@Lolis: Sometimes the economy has a way of coming up and biting them in the ass, and my guess is that it will.
debbie
If you want gloating, check out Althouse.
chopper
the biggest enemy now are austerity measures. that’s what’s going to fuck us over in the short run.
cleek
i doubt we’ll even see many hearings. it’s a drag, and makes your party seem like it’s wasting time.
my guess is that the GOP is going to lay low, make sure nothing really gets done, then run in 2012 on the line that nothing got done because the Dems are evil.
and given the ignorance on display in the last few months, i’m guessing the public will eat it up.
You Don't Say
Every reporter every time they interview any Republican must ask: What programs are you going to cut? And ask it again and again, a la Rachel Maddow, until they get an answer.
This press conference is getting on my last nerve. All these reporters care about is some easy-to-report overarching narrative to explain the universe.
beltane
This morning finds me equally disgusted by centrists and so-called progressives, neither of whom grasp the enormity of this disaster, and the fact that every single institution in this country is mobilized against us: the media, religion, Wall Street, you name it. Sorry people, but improved “messaging” is not going to change things. This is more like Russia circa 1905. We need our own Truth Factory, not a few catchy talking points.
Crashman
What I’m really worried about is the House voting against raising the debt ceiling. That would be bad.
HyperIon
DougJ wrote:
Yeah, you’re a white boy, why should you?
If I were a Muslim, I would be very worried right now.
beltane
@You Don’t Say: The media is 100% on their side. Once you realize this, it is easier to diagnose the disease and hopefully find a cure from it. The American media is not impartial, they are not our friends, and they really care about promoting a right-wing economic agenda as opposed to doing it for ratings.
me
How far back do your eyes roll?
celticdragonchick
From Ambers at The Atlantic:
Fucking useless, gutless parasites.
They wonder why their own base was dispirited.
dmsilev
@Crashman: My prediction there is that it comes up to a vote, and the Teabaggers vote it down. The Dow falls 2000 points in the space of an hour. Proxies of various billionaires explain to the Teabaggers that if they want any hope of either keeping their job or getting some of that sweet wingnut welfare that perhaps rethinking their vote might be a good idea. On the second time round, it passes.
dms
chopper
@New Yorker:
slash military spending, raise taxes on the rich. both are about as realistic as cutting SS and medicare. feh.
Dave
I think this could be a “glass half-full” couple of years.
It’ll be hard for the House to say “It’s those Dems fault!!” if they fritter away two years on bullshit investigations and hearings. Just as it’ll be hard to run away from budgets that they are now responsible for creating. It’s one thing for Eric Cantor to talk about “hundreds of billions” in cuts in vague terms. It’s another when he actually now has to define where those cuts come from.
And will Teahadists be patient when health care DOESN’T get repealed?
I think the GOP has a harder road ahead than they realize. And I think that as their crazy is exposed, a lot of voters who voted Republican in protest, or (and fuck em for doing so) sat this one out will be voting Democratic in 2012.
Bulworth
Do people realize Social Security has been running hundred billion dollar surpluses for over two decades? I realize a lot of Very Serious Villagers do not, or if they do, they don’t care. In any event, Social Security is not in any way the cause of today’s budget deficits. Rather, it is Social Security’s annual surpluses that have made higher defense spending and more tax cuts possible.
DougJ
@HyperIon:
Because all American Muslims want to practice Sharia law, right?
Punchy
Reid’s already come out and said as much. I about un-ate my breakfast seeing that so soon on The Day After.
Maude
@beltane:
Didn’t Nicholas think a little war would cheer up the Russian people?
We have a seriously bad economy.
I doubt that the Repubs in the House are going to cut Social Security or Medicare. Oldsters vote.
Brian J
I’m actually dreading seeing my boss next time because I will have to hear how this is a center right nation. I’m dreading seeing my family at Thanksgiving because I’ve been bottling up the rage and really don’t want to tell my aunts and uncles to fuck off. I’m dreading seeing my college friends because they will bust my chops to no end and go on and on about how Obama is a one term president.
Like you, I can deal with the gloating and everything else. I don’t spend my time around assholes, so it’s not as if they will be doing anything too nasty. But also like you, I’d probably end it if I had to hear how if Obama had done this with the Republicans or that with the Republicans, he’d be fine. I wanted to march to Washington and knock a few teeth out of McCain’s head when I heard him say Obama was the most partisan president he’s ever dealt with during an interview with ABC.
You know, I have recently come to the conclusion that the Republicans essentially chose to put their party before their country during the debate over the most serious fiscal and social issue that is facing this country: that of health care. I never expected them to just roll over, but making useful contributions wasn’t a priority. One of the senators from Georgia proposed something relating to end of life counseling, which was partly responsible for the death camp nonsense. They lied, cheated, and scared people, sometimes physically. I will never, ever forget how badly they acted. I’m just one person, and I was never on their side to begin with, but it’s going to be a long, long time before I ever vote for a Republican for some national office again.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
With regard to our Very Serious Centrist Pundits and their Blue Doggy friends in the US Senate, I’m beginning to understand the intensely bitter and destructive emotional dynamic between the German communists and the SDP in the early 1930s. Fuck ’em – let them die in the camps, for all I care – Nach Palin uns.
Ron
@Crashman: You nailed it. That is the one thing the “fiscal conservatives” could do that could really screw things up badly.
lamh31
Ugh, excuse the rant but…
Ya know what I want, what I want right about now is for people to at the least wait 24 fuckin’ hours before the crowing is done…on either goddamn side.
is that too much too ask? I guess not. bad enough having to deal with the smugness that is the Repubs, without also have to deal with a bunch of post from Dem/Liberal bloggers (yeah I”m talking about you Cenk Unger.
Also, WTF did people wanna see Obama do in this goddamn press conference. He’s the Goddamn POTUS, who’s party just lost pretty damn badly. Of course, he’s got to go up there and be a little “concillitary” at least 1/2 of the damn country, just dealt a blow to not only his party, but their own dumb ass issues. Oh wait, I guess he should get up there and say “fuck Repub ideas”. They aint’ worth shit. Yeah’ll that’ll sure make us feel good, but it ain’t gonna do shit for the country or Dems.
As much as I want Obama to say “fuck ya’ll” and drop the mike ala “Sexual Chocalate”, he can’t and should not do that.
Brian J
@debbie:
Didn’t she claim she voted for Obama?
Redshift
I’m pretty concerned that Social Security is going to be a tougher fight this time than last for two reasons.
First, the new tactic they’ve developed since last time is to promise not to touch Social Security for current and soon-to-be retirees, in an attempt to neutralize the real basis of the Third Rail, the senior vote. (And considering that old white people are the GOP’s most sympathetic demographic, they may get away with it.)
Second, they’ve spent several decades pretty effectively convincing younger people that Social Security is going broke and isn’t going to be there when they retire, so why should they care? In my experience, this is now pretty much common wisdom among younger people, and no one but political junkies knows it’s bullshit.
We need to be thinking now about how to counter these factors.
liberal
@Crashman:
I had the same thought.
It’d be easy to fight, though: they’d pretty much shut down the government, especially SS checks. That’s one example where effective messaging would be important.
Brian J
@Bulworth:
More to the point, Social Security’s costs rise, but then level off for decades on end.
celticdragonchick
@cleek:
No. There are some barnburners coming in who are going to make a mess, and one of the first targets will be refusing to raise the debt ceiling next year and forcing the US into financial default for the first time in history.
That will be a train wreck of unbelievable magnitude for the entire planet.
Who said elections don’t have consquences? Hyperinflation to cover our bills and having a 3rd world credit rating will be intersting consequences indeed. We may well gt to watch our country get well and truly fucked over for the rst of our lifetimes, because this sort of catastrophe will not be one w can get out of in a few years.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/11/how-much-debt.html
J
@jurassicpork: All too well said, alas!
Jewish Steel
Last night I congratulated the Green Party of Illinois on handing the Obama’s Senatorial seat to the odious Mark Kirk.
But after flaming some Greens and protest voters on facebook I reflected on it further. I wonder if there has been any election in the modern era that does not have a 5% margin that voted like a head trauma victim. Phineas Gage voters.
Suck It Up!
@lamh31:
Who’s complaining about the news conference? Its not even over yet?
I didn’t get to see the beginning, has he started blaming the DFH yet? I was told to look out for the WH blaming their losses on the left.
lamh31
@celticdragonchick:
don’t worry, the log cabin republicans are on the case.
Pfft…good luck with this strategy
To Repeal DADT, Gay GOP Group Zeroes In On Five Senators
me
@Brian J: Just think of the schadenfreude you’ll have when the teabaggers fold on everything they claimed to stand for under pressure from the Republican leadership and donors.
lamh31
@Suck It Up!:
most of the liberal twitterati!
HyperIon
@DougJ:
No, douchebag, because talk about sharia is just code for how all muslims are terrorists who just want to impose sharia on us noble christians.
chopper
@Crashman:
that’s my nightmare scenario. GOP attempts to stop any and all spending by obama are going to drive us back into recession, but throw in debt ceiling shenanigans (hah!) and we’re back on the rollercoaster. it’s like late 2008 only worse.
Face
@Dave: This.
Teatards will not be patient in their demands. The GOP that now must stop talking and start acting,will find the teatard demands ridiculous and unworkable. And HCR stays unrepealed and abortion still happening at every local YMCA and somehow, unfuckinbelievably, Amendents 17, 14, 13, and 42 are still not removed!
If anything, 2012 will find the tards unmotivated, and the Dems angry. And then House may flip yet again.
Suffern Ace
@Redshift: We won’t counter those factors. That rumor that the system is broke and the money has been raided…well, they don’t just hear that on the TV. They hear that from their family members and friends all the time.
I wish there could be some reboot to take that back…where liberals en masse say “I hate my legislature but love my government” over and over again until it sticks, but I don’t see that any time soon.
celticdragonchick
@lamh31:
The Log Cabin lawsuit is the only thing we have left at this point, and Holder will be sure to fight it all the way to the SCOTUS.
Ash Can
I’m sure the House will pass at least one HCR-repeal measure, and I’m betting they’ll do it pretty quickly. If it somehow gets past the Senate it’ll die under the veto pen, of course. But I’m wondering how the heck the House Republicans will package the thing to make them look like anything but assholes, since benefits have started to kick in.
@New Yorker: I’m expecting House spending cut proposals to look exactly like Reagan’s spending cuts — women, children, minorities, the environment, and the middle class in general bear the brunt of it, while military spending doubles and the wealthy get more tax cuts, and we still haven’t balanced the budget because the Democrats won’t let us do away with the Head Start, school lunch, and food stamp programs that are killing the economy and destroying America.
Eddie
“dismantlement of Social Security and Medicare”. They are both practically insolvent; if they are not reformed they will dismantle themselves when the money is gone. Take the ostrich approach if you wish, but there is no getting around that.
Go ahead and blame Bush the way Obama does, but Amercians aren’t fooled…they know what leadership looks like, and Obama ain’t it. Americans also know a miserable failure when they see it, and Obama is it. Completely unqualified and incompetent; we tried to tell you but you just called us bigots and still do. Hove any of the people on here EVEN ONCE considered that maybe, just maybe, Americans don’t like his agenda. Americans don’t like the Republicans, but they clearly like Obama’s agenda even less (see Nov 2)…what does that tell you? Let me guess…none of them are as smart as any of you.
Apparently Americans need to reminded every 30 years why they shouldn’t elect buffoons like Carter and Obama. Because liberal policy fails every time it is tried.
Nick L
My biggest concern is that New START is pretty much dead at this point. Ratification would have been an enormously good thing for the country, and it’s something Republicans historically would have supported. But since it’s much more important to destroy Obama than to do something positive for the country, I doubt we’ll get the arms deal.
“Reagan conservatives,” my ass.
Linda Featheringill
@jurassicpork:
Sigh. Sniff. Wipes tears away.
And this is apparently what the people want.
You Don't Say
@Crashman: Yes, in a medium known for hyperbole, you win the award for understatement.
lamh31
@celticdragonchick:
dude, if that strategy works, I’ll eat my hat! I guess what, they are gonna try to turn some retiring GOP Senators? Yeah right!
Kirk Spencer
@celticdragonchick:
This.
Of all the campaign promises made by the Tea Partiers (both actual and wannabe), this is the one that I think is most likely to crystallize everything.
I think they’ll do it — refuse to raise the ceiling. They’ll do it because they’re convinced it was surrendering on it in 1995 that doomed Gingrich et al. They’ll do it because they’re convinced there is no good reason for debt, despite them all buying houses and owning credit cards.
And we don’t have the buffer we did in 1995, so it’s going to hit us all in ways they refuse to imagine.
Socraticsilence
@New Yorker: Military Spending is by far the most out of proportion spending area- compared to virtually any other Governmental Budget in the world.
Ash Can
@Dave:
But they’ll do it anyway.
FlipYrWhig
@Ash Can:
Who says they don’t want to look like assholes? Asshole-American identity politics is thriving these days.
kth
Not sure what they’d want to do now, that they couldn’t have done in 2003-7 when they controlled all three branches of the government. We lived through that (barely), we’ll live through this.
Also all of those crunchy, Culture 11 conservatives will thankfully go away now (or repair to the Tribunal and make hat-in-hand recantations to the rednecks), so that’s a good thing.
celticdragonchick
@Kirk Spencer:
At least I can’t say it will be boring.
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to live in the Mad Max post apocalypse. This could be a great way to find out…
chopper
@celticdragonchick:
we’ll just cut discretionary spending! that’s what, 12% of the budget? that’ll fix it!
Crashman
@Kirk Spencer:
When in general are they supposed to be voting on this next year? I want to have a general idea on the date of the apocalypse.
Egypt Steve
Apropos of bullshit sharia resolutions —
I was wondering, since sharia is now declared invalid in Oklahoma, and since sharia would forbid gay marriage, is gay marriage now legal in Oklahoma?
kay
@<a hre
I’d like the Democratic minority to move pro-actively. I think they should pick a fight on student loan reform. There’s no defensible reason for handing 80 billion in government guaranteed cash to private lenders, which is why Republicans didn’t defend it (publicly) last time, and rolled over. If there were some kind of grass roots effort on that, I would join it. Pelosi ran on student loans in ’06, and it was effective.
There’s advantages to being in the minority, and on defense. There’s no reason Democrats have to wait for the attack to defend. Just get it started, on heir own terms. They’re not going to get jack-all done anyway.
celticdragonchick
@chopper:
Youbetcha!
There isn’t anybody on the right to refudiate it!
beltane
@lamh31: Don’t get me started on Cenk, a “progressive” who was every bit as overjoyed with yesterday’s results as Karl Rove and Glenn Beck.
You Don't Say
How many times are they going to ask the same fucking question?
4tehlulz
@Crashman: Probably around March.
Ash Can
@dmsilev:
And my prediction is that the gig goes down exactly as you’ve described it here.
chopper
@Kirk Spencer:
they’re also going to do it based on some stupid theories flying around that surpassing the debt ceiling won’t really be that bad and won’t really cause a default. economic lysenkoism at its best.
celticdragonchick
@Crashman:
The one to really watch for is Aqua Buddha and if he puts a Sentatorial hold on any bill raising the ceiling. He seemed to threaten somthing of that nature last night, and said he would not go along with the party leadership on the issue (if I got the sense of it correct).
New Yorker
@Socraticsilence:
Right, I would massively cut military spending (don’t know what use the F-22 and 10 carrier battlegroups are in fighting Osama bin Laden) and raise taxes to battle the deficit. I’m with Krugman here and don’t think we should be enacting austerity measures right now, but they will have to be enacted at some point.
As for the risk of a US default on the debt, does anyone here really think the GOP will defy their masters at Goldman Sachs and Koch Enterprises and allow this to happen? You people are giving the teabaggers waaaaay too much credit here….
NonyNony
@Kirk Spencer:
Scenario plays out like this:
Raising the debt ceiling becomes an issue.
They seriously indicate that they will not do it.
It starts to look like we’re going to go into default as a nation.
Billionaire backers of the GOP watch as their assets become negligible
Billionaire backers of the GOP pull the goddamn puppet strings to save their money
Debt ceiling gets raised.
I might be wrong, but the GOP doesn’t do anything that their corporate overlords aren’t going to like. There’s a reason why Bush got the bank bailout passed with Republican support.
IOW – things might suck hard for those of us who have to work for a living, but there’s no way in Hell that a Republican Congress is going to do anything to make life miserable for the truly rich.
ETA: or what dmsilev and New Yorker said.
Suffern Ace
@chopper: It’ll force the government to do something! It’ll be decisive!
It won’t happen. Seriously. The Republicans do not hate the banks that much. They will fake not voting on it and the Dems will pass it in the hopes of getting some of that banker campaign money back.
Lolis
My friend who is kind of PUMA-ish thinks Obama is doing a great job at the presser. Says Obama is standing his ground on all his policies. I am not surprised. His team has to realize this election is simply a reflection of a bad economy.
4tehlulz
FTFY
celticdragonchick
@NonyNony:
Again, it takes just one Aqua asshole to put a hold on the bill coming up for a vote for the crash to happen…and Aqua asshole may or may not do what Goldman Sacks tells him to do. He does not have any serious investiture from the banksters yet, and he really seems crazy enough to do it. Anybody willing to wander onto national tv in this age and advocate the repeal of all civil rights laws is simply outside our normal experience.
DougJ
@lamh31:
I agree with you.
Chris
@HyperIon:
There are white Muslims, but that’s besides the point…
I have two points of view about identity politics and the way they play the Scary Muslim card for all it’s worth;
1) On the one hand, it’s obviously just piss and wind. The superrich bastards running the show don’t care about Islam one way or another (witness the Saudi stake in NewsCorp), and the recent craze was obviously staged to coincide with the elections (heck, Laura Ingraham’s on record with the imam back in December of 09 saying she thinks he’s doing a wonderful thing). So, it’s just an electoral prop.
2) On the other hand; rhetoric has consequences. The anti-Muslim craze is just an electoral prop to the people whipping it up, but to a very large part of the Republican base, it’s as real as the ground under their feet. If you drive people to the polls by convincing them that every Muslim in the country is part of a secret jihad against them, sooner or later, the voters are going to start asking why the people they elected don’t seem concerned about it.
dmsilev
@Lolis: Obama has two nearly-supernatural political gifts. One is to stay calm, or at least appear to stay calm, no matter what is going on around him. The other is to drive his political opponents absolutely insane. Since the teabaggers are starting fairly far out on the insanity index, this latter superpower of his is going to have some of them literally gibbering like chimpanzees by roughly March.
dms
Gus
@You Don’t Say: @Ash Can: Exactly. They can make that case saying that they need to hold the presidency and Senate, too. Of course people are so fucking stupid and historically ignorant, they’ll let them take control and fuck it all up again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@NonyNony:
You left out a few more steps at the end:
Any memory of the bond market going into cardiac arrest goes down the memory hole 5 minutes after the bill is passed, the Dems get blamed by the teabaggers and everybody in the media for raising the debt ceiling, the teabaggers use it as a permanent campaign issue to stoke their populist rage machine, and we do this all over again every year for the next 10 years, like a Three Stooges eye-poking festival of fun.
TooManyJens
@Nick L:
The House isn’t involved in treaties, just the Senate. So it will probably depend on whether we get filibuster reform.
Kirk Spencer
@Crashman: You mean not voting on it.
Current estimates put us reaching the limit sometime in the second quarter. There are accounting games, learned in 1995, that can delay things for a few months, but I estimate no later than August we are forced to stop paying something.
The window is March to August of next year. At that point we defacto default on our debts, internal and external, and it’s just a question of how long various holders of those debts are willing to give us before they cut their losses.
aimai
@Jewish Steel:
Heh! Phineas Gage! I was just reading all about him in Descartes Error. Well, its only a small pleasure on such a dark day but we take our pleasures where we can.
aimai
Nick L
@TooManyJens:
Nope. Treaties require 67 votes by Constitutional decree. It would require an amendment to fix it.
I know the House has nothing to do with treaties. It’s the losses in the Senate that worry me. New START’s prospects were bad enough with 60 Democrats. Now with 51-52, we need at the very least 15 Republicans to sign on. There are a handful that might – the New England trio, Lugar, Graham, maaaayybe Coburn, possibly some more. But getting to 15, which probably won’t be enough, seems nearly impossible.
The best hope is to pass it in the lame duck session, but I doubt that’ll happen.
HyperIon
@Chris wrote :
those people are going to start taking things into their own hands.
That’s the way I’d finish your sentence.
I don’t see how any Muslim citizen of the US (regardless of color) can interpret the election results as anything except: better watch your back.
Oscar Leroy
So, if someone were to put Social Security in serious danger, what would you say to that person?
LanceThruster
From teabaggers and other mindless conservatives (is that oxymoronic?), I notice the prevailing attitude is, “We’re sick of people telling us we’re wrong!” (my sister has that attitude). This makes their “defense” remarkably simple. They don’t have to defend their positions; they and their other smug fellow travelers just have to stand firm in their rejection of people telling them they’re wrong. They’re practically giddy about it. In their circle, willful ignorance combined with unjustified stubborness are positive character traits.
The more frightening aspect of it is the cowardly “champions” who talk about using force to get their way if the rest of the country doesn’t see things as they do. They are so convinced of their “rightness” that it would be a failure on their part *not* to use force if that would otherwise turn the tide.
And they love their country and democracy (when they can pervert it enough to come out on top). Also.
Brachiator
@DougJ:
I think we are beyond the old formulations of “quasi-centrist,” liberal and progressive. The mainstream GOP (the party of bad ideas) and the resurgent Tea Party (the party of no ideas) are getting ready to gut the remnants of the American economy. The middle class has been effectively eviscerated by stagnant wages, job losses and debt loads.
Still, the new Congress can’t directly attack Social Security or Medicare. But they can undermine it with payroll tax holidays and with policies that accelerate the destruction of American jobs.
@Egypt Steve:
What you should fear is the new American Christianist Sharia. This little taste of what happened in Iowa may be a new front in the attempt of the right to re-establish their brand of authoritarianism.
Economic primitivism and social primitivism. What a country.
Oscar Leroy
No doubt, but business is doing fine right now, so if nothing changes that’s jake with them, too.
F**k the deficit, that’s what. Jobless people are living in cars and you want to cut the deficit? Oh dear, I’m so so sorry your investments might end up worth slightly less than they do now.
Oscar Leroy
The media made him do it.
FlipYrWhig
@LanceThruster:
Yes, that’s one of the articles of faith of modern conservatism. The other one is “Somewhere out there is a lazy bastard living it up on my hard-earned money!”
The only solution to it is waiting for a mass die-off.
Oscar Leroy
@Redshift:
“I’m pretty concerned that Social Security is going to be a tougher fight this time than last for two reasons.”
Don’t forget reason #3: This time, it’s Democrats threatening it. When Republicans want to cut it, Democrats rebel. When one of their own does it, it might be a different story.
Oscar Leroy
Haha ) That’s awesome
Thank goodness that’s what he’s good at, rather than getting laws passed or framing a new narrative for the country as a whole
Todd Dugdale
@Dave: I completely agree.
Maody
but, but
Chris
@HyperIon:
I don’t think they’ll take it into their hands… or if they do, it’ll take more than this. In the words of Tom Clancy, rich people don’t throw rocks. It’s too hard on the china. It’s more likely that they’ll pressure Rand Paul type crazies into taking measures… which amounts to the same thing as far as the Muslims are concerned, of course.
I don’t see how any Muslim citizen of the US (regardless of color) can interpret the election results as anything except: better watch your back.
I agree.
And it staggers me that a religious minority that was so well integrated that it was actually a Republican constituency (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_americans#Politics) could be stigmatized, demonized and “otherized” the way they have in the last decade. Better watch your back indeed.
LanceThruster
@FlipYrWhig:
As they tool around on their bumper-stickered, government paid for “Rascals” sucking up oxygen out of a bottle that in their minds other people aren’t worthy to breath.
chopper
@Oscar Leroy:
i get this strange feeling that you don’t like the president.
FlipYrWhig
@LanceThruster: Well, sure, but they’ll tell you _they_ deserved it, because they worked hard all their lives, not like those ungrateful fakers who just want a handout. These are earned benefits, not charity!
debbie
@ Brian J:
But then the hangover lifted and Althouse backpedaled as quickly as her pudgy legs could move.
tractor
DougJ: When you dismiss the entire idea of entitlement reform, does that mean that Medicare is actually viable going forward? Show me the math that says we don’t need to do anything with Medicare, we can just proceed along as things are and everything will be okay.
Opinion without any factual basis is not too helpful. The numbers I’ve seen are pretty convincing that Medicare is unsustainable. It’s not necessarily an ideological thing, it’s just math and accounting.
Above you essentially said the future liabilities in the Medicare system are not really a problem. I’d be interested to see the financial projections that support such a view.
henqiguai
@New Yorker (#4):
Someone help me out here. I seem to have missed most of the government funding for Social Security. Is it not simply a pass-thru from “my” paycheck to current recipients ? I mean, except where it’s all been appropriated by Congress to pay for their pork and military adventures.
John Bird
It is probably time for Obama to start using the veto on Blue Dog Senate bills.