.
Timothy Egan, in the NYTimes, condemns the Repubs to the “Wrong Side of History“:
Sarah Palin finally got her death panels — a direct blow from the Republican House. In shutting down the government, leaving 800,000 people without a paycheck and draining the economy of $300 million a day, the Party of Madness also took away last-chance cancer trials for children at the National Institutes of Health.
And now that the pain that was dismissed as a trifle on Monday, a “slimdown” according to the chuckleheads at Fox News, is revealed as tragic by mid-week, the very radicals who caused the havoc are trying to say it’s not their fault.
It’s too late. They flunked hostage-taking. About 30 or so Republicans in the House, bunkered in gerrymandered districts while breathing the oxygen of delusion, are now part of a cast of miscreants who have stood firmly on the wrong side of history. The headline, today and 50 years from now, will be the same: Republicans closed the government to keep millions of their fellow Americans from getting affordable health care…
You have to step back from the breathless tick-tock of the 24-hour news cycle to put this grim chapter in larger perspective. “Can you remember a time in your lifetime when a major political party was just sitting around, begging for America to fail?” So asked a perplexed Bill Clinton a few days ago.
The answer is no. What kind of failure are we talking about? Not just to equity markets, jobs, the mechanics of daily life in the world’s biggest economy. The shutdown stops research on Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, cancer treatments. Two-thirds of the employees at the Centers for Disease Control were sent home. Many food inspectors, people who train air traffic controllers, anti-terrorism experts — all furloughed. And shed a tear for Yosemite National Park on its 123rd birthday Monday. America’s Best Idea — as the parks are called — couldn’t compete with America’s Worst Idea, the Tea Party Republicans….
Be sure to read the whole thing.
What’s on the agenda for the end of this Very Bad, No Good week?
Jerzy Russian
I will be catching up on all of the shit I did not get done this week. At least that is the plan.
Mustang Bobby
Despite the fact that I work for a government agency, I got paid today and I can actually go do some things I’ve been putting off. Like shopping for food.
I wish I could take Timothy Egan’s words to heart, but I don’t think the GOP will pay a price for their radicalism. They are counting on the slow clock speed and short attention span of the electorate, and a year from now they’ll probably keep all their seats in Congress and perhaps pick up a few more. The one thing they do best is polish a turd.
piratedan
so when you see a Republican on the street, be sure to thank them for caring about the country and the people who serve her…..Let them know how much you appreciate them taking the principled stand of denying affordable health care to the working poor and disabled and that they’re willing to risk our country’s finances and global reputation because of it. Let them know that we appreciate the integrity that they’ve shown in how they deal with legislation that they’ve voted for by “moving the goalposts” at the first opportunity and the evenhanded way that they appear to hate everyone, women, minorities, the poor, immigrants and now even federal workers.
Emerald
Sadly, I think @Mustang Bobby: is correct.
The Republicans went completely batshit crazy over Social Security and Medicare too, and they’re still trying to get rid of both programs, but they take no punishment for it in the polls, except sometimes directly after another privatization attempt. Then it all bounces back to the old meme that the Rs are the party of good economics and the Ds are spendthrifts.
When the precise opposite has been true ever since Reagan.
I hope that after this debacle they’ll at least lose the House for a couple of years and give Obama more than just a total of two years out of eight to do his stuff.
But I doubt it.
The only light in the tunnel is that they really are destroying themselves. It is going to be fascinating to watch. If they fracture in 2014 we’ve got a chance, maybe.
Cermet
Now that bonehead, the mouth of the teabaggers in the house, has stated that the debt ceiling is off the table and will be extended (three months, maybe?) the shut down looks to drag on … great.
SiubhanDuinne
It’s a terrific piece, with a howler of a typo smack in the middle:
A very understandable typo, of course.
WereBear
We move at the speed of our dumbest member, that’s all.
I’ve been ready to end the Reagan Revolution since about 1985, when it became obvious that Morning in America involved waking up extra early to make more money for The Man.
But, back in medieval times, it would have taken a couple of centuries for something this self-evident to float to the top of serf consciousness, so we are making progress.
russ
I like this.
Can I burn down your house?
No
Just the 2nd floor?
No
The Garage?
No
Let’s talk about what I can burn down.
No
YOU AREN’T COMPROMISING!
h/t Think Progress
Fred
It’s our freedom. They hate America because of our freedom.
BillinGlendaleCA
@WereBear:
I was ready in 1980; I voted for Jimmy Carter.
Schlemizel
this one is my favorite – titled “Weekend at Boehners”
http://www.gocomics.com/mikeluckovich/2013/10/03#.Uk6VS3azKpg
I’m going in this afternoon to have a biopsy done on a new lesion in my throat. I assume my weekend will be spend fretting as the results won’t be delivered before Monday it being the weekend and all
raven
A drive in the mountains will have to be a substitute for a weekend at the beach.
raven
@Schlemizel: Dang bro, hang in there.
WereBear
@BillinGlendaleCA: I also voted for Carter in 1980. But I was young, and had not grasped how utterly anti-life these people aspired to be.
August, 1981: ATC strike; he’s a friggin’ strike breaker!
Then they dropped all kinds of tax rigging that turned our little family from “a few bucks left over at the end of the year for Christmas!” status to “tighten our belts again, I love these discount burritos!” status.
So around 1985 I hated their guts, and pretty much stayed there. Loathing and disbelief kicked in with W.
Linda Featheringill
@Schlemizel:
[hug]
Schlemizel
@Mustang Bobby:
@Emerald:
I believe the Congressional districts are gerrymandered well enough that the Dems can’t take the house unless they can come up with a million more votes than they got in ’12 (or the GOP a million less). That just is not going to happen in an off-year unless there is divine intervention and He has not shown much interest in His creation for the last couple thousand years as far as I can see.
But worse yet, if Nate Silver is to be believed (and why not), the Goppers will take the Senate. Now we can hope for the sort of insane incompetence the REpublican primary voters have so admirably displayed in the last couple of cycles to save us from the slow lingering death the GOP has in store for us but that well of stupidity is not the sort of thing I want to pin my hopes on. I think we are stuck in an era of split government manhandled by the crazies until we can replace the government, and the districts of Ohio, Wisconsin and a couple of other shit hole states
JPL
@Mustang Bobby: Here are two examples of the repubs message changes. The mandate is killing small businesses and now, taking it away is a gift to big businesses. Chained CPI is necessary to save social security and now Obama is killing the old people. It’s not only the public that has a short term memory, it’s the Chuck Todd’s of MSM.
@raven: It sounds like fun, unless you plan your trip for Sunday.
raven
@JPL: Nah, we’re going to light out this morning and get back in time for kickoff tomorrow.
HeartlandLiberal
Tuesday I faxed a long message to my Rep in IN-09, both Indiana Senators, Boehner and Pelosi. The White House FAX line bombed. I tried calling the main White House comment number, and got a recording it was unavailable thanks to the shutdown.
Here are some extracts from my message / FAX:
——————————————
This post was FAXed to Congress October 2nd, with the following preface added in the FAX:
Let me summarize this in one paragraph:
The GOP must quit acting like a bunch of vicious, murderous, bomb tossing terrorists holding this nation hostage, and pass a CLEAN DEBT LIMIT bill to stop this obscene attack on the American people and its legitimate government. No attachments. No requirements. Just a clean bill. And not for just six weeks, but for the next 12 months at least. The American people are sick and tired and disgusted with the GOP, which has become the party of no-nothing hypocrites and blatant, non-stop liars, foaming at the mouth, and in this case all just to PREVENT PEOPLE FROM BUYING INSURANCE IN THE PRIVATE MARKET! They know the ACA will be successful, just as Medicare and Social Security have been, and thus they want to kill it before its value is clear to the American People. Nothing more. Nothing less.
…
And keep in mind, the GOP is engaging in this kamikaze mission in order to save Americans from being able to buy health care insurance, in a program designed to keep that insurance in the private health insurance market. A plan originally conceived and advocated by the Heritage Foundation, one of the premier Right Wing conservative think tanks. The same program passed into law in Mass. when Romney was governor there.
They are waging a scorched earth war on government so that literally tens of millions of Americans will continue to be unable to have adequate insurance to help them have adequate access to health care
… (stats here on how many people already had improved insurance even before exchanges opened)
And those stats do not even touch the many millions of Americans who will now be able to buy affordable insurance through the exchanges being set up in states nationwide. Of course, those poor in the Republican controlled states, where their governors refused to implement the new Medicaid program for the indigent and truly poor will just have to suck dirt, be sick, and die. But then, the GOP do not care about them, anyway. After all, that is not their donor or electoral base.
But then, as so many members of the GOP have pointed out, they can just go to the Emergency Room. Which, of course, results in the American taxpayer and those who can afford insurance picking up the tab, because those costs are allocated into what we pay. They do not pay themselves.
There is no free lunch in the Emergency Room, contrary to apparent GOP belief.
I told Young’s staffer that as far as I was concerned, President Obama should just issue an executive order declaring the debt limit raised.
… (Quote here from 14th amendment and scholarly commentary)
Section 5, by the way, does NOT give Congress the permission to NULLIFY, which is what the GOP is trying to do at the moment, return to the heady days of nullification that characterized the states in the run up to the Civil War. The whole point of the 14th amendment was to a great extent to point out that nullification thing was done and over with.
Interesting that the party who were waving their copies of the Constitution while standing on the floor of the House at the beginning of the last couple of terms seem never to have read or understand the document in the slightest.
The Constitution is crystal clear on this issue, it states in black and white that all debts of the United States shall be made good. There is no language in the Constitution allowing any waffling, or exceptions for Obamacare, birth control exceptions in insurance, or vaginal ultrasound probes, which is pretty much what the the poison pills the GOP kept stuffing into the bills sent to the Senate either were, or might as well have been, even up to a few minutes before midnight last night.
———————-
Then I closed with quotes from Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich, and Dick Armey, all quotes from the 1980’s on, about how they had fought against the evil Medicare and Social Security programs from the beginning, and how they had to be done away with.
debbie
Someone needs to compile a long, long list of the good things that the government does and paste it all over the place to counteract the small list of what some (ie, Palin) consider to be total wastes of money.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Hate to tell you this debbie, but that’s the same list.
BillinGlendaleCA
@WereBear: Well, we out here in CA had a bit of a preview. He was our Gov for 8 years and in 78 we got Prop 13, the start of the tax revolt.
OzarkHillbilly
As to how I am going to end this week…. Finish roofing the front of the house by noon, drive into town and the local watering hole where they have cable, then watch the Cards slaughter the Pirates… again.
exurbanmom
The kids at our local school were prevented from going on their 8th grade trip by the shutdown. they marched on the local town square, with signs like “Congress, quit acting like children, that’s our job.”
Tommy
My brother’s wife works at TRANSCOM (Google it). Know what she does, as a Civilian, for a living? She plans our troops getting supplies in Afganistan. With the sequester her hours were cut. A day a week.
She told me funding is there for her not to lose hours now, but only for three weeks. After that she will not be able to go to work. Ponder that for a few seconds. What is the phrase, an Army marches on its belly. Very true.
Villago Delenda Est
It’s interesting that the comments on Egan’s essay are nearly unanimous in agreeing with its overall tone. There’s one tea party apologist who is promptly rebutted by two other commenters. Some of the commenters offer ideas on how to address the issue, but those suggestions are tinkering around the edges without bearing down on the real problem, which one commenter highlights: the teatards cannot deal with change at all.
Conservatism USED to be about measures for maintaining and strengthening social stability. The Teatards are determined to destroy social stability in order to save it. There is no Bismarck in America who realizes that change is going to come one way or another and it’s best to moderate the change rather than try to fight against it and insure that violent change is how it takes place.
Villago Delenda Est
@debbie:
Even Sarah Palin understood why volcano monitoring (which was mocked by Bobby “Watch me be a shithead on national televison” Jindal) is important. But then again, why should anyone in Alaska give a flying fuck about hurricanes hitting the Gulf coast?
Tommy
@exurbanmom: In the mid-80s the two best class I took in highschool were: (1) typing, who knew at that time computers would rule and (2) Civics.
A totally not political class. We were just taught how the government works. How a bill becomes a law. The basics. Things every citizen should know IMHO. I hear that isn’t often taught anymore. I find that sad. Heck I got a renewed “Voter Card” the other day and did a “happy dance” just looking at it.
I always vote cause of that class. It is my duty as a citizen.
Citizen Scientist
@Schlemizel: Positive thoughts heading your way.
Punchy
Im traveling up thru MO, southwestern Iowa, over to Iowa City. Basically the heart of today’s tornadic (and hail) threat. The chance I see something spinny and destructive is a non-zero value. Wife’s on edge.
kindness
TGIF. I think liberals should take back the tri-cornered hat. TeaHaddists have ruined the proud early american icon. They can keep the knickers though. Makes ’em look like the nuts they are.
At this point I’d like to see Democrats hold out for a clean CR and a clean debt ceiling raise because if they don’t get both now we will be doing this again in 2 weeks only this time the world markets and our credit rating will be cratering.
JPL
@Schlemizel: Here is today’s Luckovich cartoon to cheer you up link. Maybe cheer is not the appropriate word though.
While you are pacing this weekend, I might mention this a great site, that you can hang out at.
Tommy
@Punchy: Two thoughts. You are in my neck of the woods if you’d turn your car East and drive a few miles. Second, You are pretty much out of tornado season now. And even if it was, pretty rare.
Citizen Scientist
I work for the military and, luckily, have a dual state/federal position. I didn’t get furloughed (YET). According to our collective bargaining agreement, our Gov has to give 30 days notice before furloughs. Unforutnatley, I am considered management, so if Tom Corporate wanted to press the issue, I could be furloughed tomorrow. I have a feeling that there’s a political consideration partly at play here: Tom’s up for reelection next year and his popularity continues to fall (the latest poll this week was pretty brutal).
My major complaint, besides the furloughs in general (particularly when many, as of yet, have no promise of backpay), is that the shutdown is keeping me from spending $2,500 at a local business, just in case I get furloughed in the next month. It’s unreal how much $$ this situation is taking out of the economy. We need to hit these ratfuckers hard on the economics of this, as well as the fact that they still want to take away health insurance from people after the exchanges opened. Scorched earth after salting their fields in ’14 and ’16.
liberal
My personal story: made a big career move (in my late 40s) and left a job doing biostatistics at the NIH. Wife is a fed (she transferred, we moved; it was more her idea…), so now at least we have one paycheck, instead of none. (Not that we’re hurting—my heart goes out to those who are.)
Anyhoo…new place is a tech firm. I really like working here, but at least three people have said something to the effect that there’s no difference between the parties, or both are to blame, etc. It’s not what you’re used to in the bloggersphere, where such assertions come from the left. It’s just plumb ignorance. (And it’s not like these guys are right-wing either…)
Schlemizel
It occurs to me that the modern conservative is a lot like that giant bug from “Men In Black”. Remember when the bug dismisses concern over war by explaining war just means more food for his family? Todays conservative is just like that bug, running around in an Edgar suit trying to create as much mayhem & damage as possible on the belief it is good for him.
liberal
@Punchy:
Having grown up in IA, I was always remiss that I never saw one of the things.
Whatever. The actual chance of bumping into a tornado is extremely small (at least over a short time period); they cut very narrow swathes.
Hail’s another matter. Might have to do the old “park under a bridge” move if you’re out in the open.
liberal
@Citizen Scientist:
Agreed, but part of the problem is that there’s at least some evidence that they’ve been wanting to hurt the economy.
Linda
There is no exit strategy for The People Who Are Right All the Time and Have Never Been Wrong About Anything, Ever. Because, do they need one? Or could they learn anything? No, if you are right all the time. Only mortals learn from their mistakes. So they are shoulder-deep in crap, and keep digging. However, not everyone is gerrymandered into perfect safety. My sis called her Republican congressman, and it took 1 1/2 hours to get through, presumably because hundreds of other pissed off constituents were doing the same thing.
Since the Republicans are bubble wrapped in delusion, it will take a few election cycles to get the message. But they may fall apart as a national party. All it would take is for a few big states, like California, where it’s already hard to get elected as a Republican, to drop the party affiliation. And why not? in 1980, nobody thought the Soviet Union would go tits up, but by 1992 they were done, and they had better tools in their toolchest than voter I.D. laws and gerrymandering. When people are through with your shit, they are through.
Punchy
@Tommy: Normally, yes. But areas near Lincoln NE just got hit last nite by a twister, and shit goes west to east, etc. Yeah, the biggest threat is hail big enough to fuck up my SUV.
Keith P.
This kind of thing gets me, because while federal cancer trials etc are on hold, the GOP is making their big deal about whether or not monuments are open so that senior citizens can visit them. And when the sequester started, they were making big deals about White House tours. Priorities, I guess.
cvstoner
Except that they’re not just sitting around and begging for America to fail. They are actively trying to make it fail.
Patricia Kayden
@piratedan: “now even federal employees”? Repubs have always hated federal employees. You must not remember that during the Bush 43 years, some federal positions were outsourced to contractors.
Repubs don’t hate everyone — I’m sure White voters are still up on their list of loved ones.
BillinGlendaleCA
@JPL: I told you God wears Dodger Blue.
danielx
They oppose the provisions of the Affordable Care Act for exactly the same reasons as they opposed Social Security and Medicare – because it provides benefits to the American public which
“…will relegitimize middle-class dependence for “security” on government spending and regulation. It will revive the reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests. And it will at the same time strike a punishing blow against Republican claims to defend the middle class by restraining government.”
So sayeth the prophet William Kristol…in 1993. Even a blind pig finds an acorn every once in a while, and even Bloody Bill got to be right for once in his benighted history of gross and egregious suck and fail.
Rephrase: this must be stopped because it will be popular, and anything that causes people to perceive that government does things for them instead of doing things to them must be opposed at all costs. As it was in 1993, so it is now although as Egan and others point out, it’s not like this is a new pattern.
cvstoner
@Schlemizel:
What an apt way to describe the difference between the ultra rich and the rest of us: war means more food for their families!
Ash Can
@Cermet: I’ll believe that the debt ceiling is off the table when I see it for myself. Boehner has given his gavel to the Teahad and at this point can’t get up and go to the can without raising his hand and asking permission from them. No way are they letting him take the debt ceiling away from them.
Suffern ACE
@Keith P.: well, it does make them the defenders of the middle class Id. “Do what you want to the poor, as long as it doesn’t interfere with my vacation. If it interferes with my ability to go on vacation and shop, I will be mad.”
weaselone
@Schlemizel:
I don’t think Nate gives much credence to his own predictions at the moment. He’s basically prognosticating based on the general Dem/Rep lean of the states and the availability and interest of high profile candidates for the Senate races. Republicans nearly always have an advantage here based on their domination in rural states.
Nate has commented that predicting election results is easier than predicting the results of a baseball game, but that’s after the candidates are known, the mood of the electorate divined and several polls have been taken. To borrow from history’s worst Secretary of Defense, there are lots of known unknowns and unknown unknowns. We should probably wait at least until the candidates have actually been selected before we start dousing ourselves with playing with matches.
TriassicSands
In 2012, Norm Ornstein (American Enterprise Institute) and Thomas Mann (Brookings) wrote an OP-ED in the Post clearly stating that the problem in Washington (and the country) is plain and simple the Republican Party. I cheered that essay, but it had no real effect on the MSM’s lazy and dishonest “both sides do it” approach to political reporting. However, every time a prominent person explains exactly why the Republicans are the problem and honestly and accurately descries the barbarity of their policies, we get one more tiny nick in the Wall of Stupidity that governs American journalism. Egan’s essay is one more baby step on what will undoubtedly be a long, and arduous trek to getting the American people to understand that the Modern Republican Party and its members are antithetical to a prosperous, just society.
Cassidy
I work 24 on 48 off, so today is hang out in some peace and quiet, work out, and date night tonight.
fuckwit
@Schlemizel: This is the worst, most depressing, most hope-destroying thing I’ve heard in years. I can only wish that you are completely wrong.
I can’t survive another 10 years of this shit. If these teabagging clowns can’t be booted out of office decisively next year, or worse if they take the Senate too, I can’t handle that. It can’t be this hopelessly bad for 10 years until redistricting. That cannot be allowed to happen. THAT’S ANOTHER FUCKING DECADE! If it’s that inevitable, I don’t think I personally will be able to make it that long.
ksmiami
@weaselone: I was a little worried about Democratic apathy in 2014. Um NOT ANYMORE. The GOP has revealed itself to be a clear and present danger to America and people will not sit on the sidelines.
Ella in New Mexico
@Schlemizel:
The only thing that keeps popping into my head to defeat the Tea Party control of these districts is “Third Party Candidates”.
If it’s done right, putting up a third party, independent candidate who’s positions help pull votes from the Republican running, could be the way to knock out some of these assholes.
Suffern ACE
@ksmiami: check back to me next month after the Virginia election results and then we can sing the praises if Democratic Party voters. Chances are we’ll be demonizing them for their apathy. But I’m not going to declare our voters mid-term apathy over until we actually see them deliver.
Cermet
@Ash Can: Hope you are correct but Bonehead isn’t stupid. Breaking the debt ceiling means his base doesn’t get their welfare checks; have you ever seen a teabagger who loses his welfare checks? That is savaged rage that has no equal and yes, their local thug critter will get a shit load. Bonehead knows that more than even the President.
With the debt ceiling getting addressed, the CR is their only leverage and that, they will hold since the teabaggers aren’t hurt and it makes the thugs look like they are doing something.
Botsplainer
@danielx:
The highlighted, bolded phrase is the foundation stone of (and implicitly admits) the fundamental lie. A restrained government does the opposite of defending the middle class – the government is the ultimate guarantor of the health and expansion of the middle class, because without it, the 1% shitheads would distort and manipulate markets to the point where market efficiency would be worthless in governing commerce.
It isn’t as if we don’t have historical reference in the West. The tulip bubble, the chattel slavery bubble, all of the various US depressions any recessions of the 19th and early 20th century demonstrate what happens when you leave the 1% to their idiot whims.
One other thing – when a person is deprived of true economic and personal decisionmaking, is it not rational for him to then reach to his other means of agency? Ballot box first, then crime or revolt? Is that not a market, in a sense?
Suffern ACE
@fuckwit: hey. To add onto your misery, there is no guarantee that the 2020 census results and redistricting will help much either. If republicans control statehouses and governors mansions, do you expect them to sign away their congressional majorities?
MomSense
@Schlemizel:
Sending good thoughts to you.
liberal
@Keith P.:
No, I thought they are now pulling the “OK, we’ll fund NIH selectively, too” crap.
Was driving in listening to NPR, and heard some testimony from some current or former NIH woman agreeing with the Republican position. Evil.
Bob
Thanks for the NYT link.
liberal
@BillinGlendaleCA:
It’s important not to forget, though, that important ingredients of the Reagan revolution started under Carter: large increases in military spending, and deregulation.
Not that I’m happy Reagan won. (Too young to vote, though I did pull the level for George McGovern at age 7.)
Villago Delenda Est
@Citizen Scientist:
The teatards do not understand how modern economies work. Adam Smith (yes, here I go again) figured all this out over two centuries ago, but all these fierce advocates of “free markets” and “the invisible hand” have clearly not read The Wealth of Nations.
Multiply your 2k plus by hundreds of thousands, and that’s the amount of money that is not being put into the economy. This is abject stupidity in the extreme.
IowaOldLady
R’s pay no penalty for their positions because those positions (like getting rid of SS) are so preposterous many people don’t believe they’d enact them. Thus voters are shocked in places like NC.
Suffern ACE
@Villago Delenda Est: yes. But that isn’t the real economy. That spending is the fake ecomomy. The real economy is heroic and filled with handsome entrepreneurs who slay evil government bureaucratic giants. If your job depends on government spending, it probably isn’t a job that is real in anyway heroic.
Villago Delenda Est
@Suffern ACE:
I’m sure those serving in Afghanistan can agree with you on that!
ksmiami
@Suffern ACE: Quite a few people hurt by the shutdown in VA and Cooch is despised so we’ll see…
Elizabelle
@Suffern ACE:
In Virginia, Cooch is running a 24 point deficit among women.
There’s a third party Liberatarian in the race; I see him drawing more votes from Cuccinelli than McAuliffe.
Terry McA’s voters may not love him personally, but they fear and despise Cooch for what he could do to state government.
The Fairfax Chamber of Commerce endorsed McAuliffe.
JPL
@BillinGlendaleCA: ugh
Elizabelle
To all of you despairing souls:
Could you stop the Eeyoring about “we can’t even keep the Senate in 2014” and “we can’t do a thing about the House because of gerrymandering”?
Lots of you have talked about what a good deal The Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare is for your families.
Don’t you think that will happen all over America in the next few months, even with some glitches and problems as it comes online?
It’s not like Republicans have done a thing about jobs or healthcare for the middle class. Lotta rhetoric, period.
A lot can change in a year, and President Obama and all of us are hugely motivated to give him the best Congress possible.
Maybe we could even see Nancy Pelosi back as Speaker of the House.
One can dream.
And some of those Republicans in safe districts won because it’s assumed their districts are impenetrable. Maybe not.
Why assume that every registered Republican is a tea partier?
Isn’t that making the same error that Cruz and Rand Paul and those shutting down government are making?
Kent
As a former Federal employee I remember going through the last shutdown nonsense during the Clinton era. I actually got a 2-week vacation out of it without having to take vacation time but that is beside the point. What I would really like is for the Administration to play serious hardball with these turds. Obama could do the following.
1. Give a little speech about how all Federal employees are essential to the functioning of the country and that we aren’t going to play games about how say…the FAA and meat inspectors are “essential” but cancer treatment is not. Without funding we just shut all of it down, no airports, no food processing, no commercial activity in Federal lands or waters until Congress does its job, and
2. Talk about how he isn’t going to ask employees to serve without pay while doing their job while Congress gets paid not to do theirs.
Hurricane is bearing down on the Gulf Coast? Gee. Sorry we can’t tell you much about it, where it will hit, how fast it is going because the Republicans won’t pass a budget to fund the NWS. And don’t expect FEMA to be there to pick up the pieces, they are closed too.
Then Obama goes on National TV with a hurricane bearing down on the Gulf Coast pleading with Congress to let the country get back to work to deal with real problems.
TS
@Elizabelle:
Thank you – 2010 came about with the despair that “Obama failed us” – and the media loved it – and so came the tea party.
becca
I’m cautiously hopeful that more people are waking up. The check-out line I was in yesterday was abuzz with talk of the shutdown. The woman who made a derogatory comment about food stamp recipients was roundly iced. My daughter and her friends are becoming aware of the real differences between living and raising a family in red states and blue states. Relocation to more family-friendly states with good schools and clean air is a hot topic. One of the most demure and mild-mannered of my co-workers said she just wants to “throttle” the GOP at this point.
And my octogenarian, always-voted-GOP, retired officer’s wife, southern mother has had it. She still dislikes Obama cuz he’s blah…, but the GOP has her “scared to death”.
And that was just from conversations yesterday.
shortstop
@SiubhanDuinne: I know; that one made me laugh, too.
Also, it’s Marlin Stutzman, not Martin. No sense making him sound more dignified than he is.
WereBear
It’s simply an excuse to HandWave any concerns away from their minds. When I point out they have actually enacted them, or the idiocy and cruelty of simply saying them, they treat me like a child who doesn’t understand that the grownups are talking.
fidelio
@OzarkHillbilly: WIthout any disrespect to our host (and his mother), from your mouth (or fingers, in this case) to FSM’s orchietti.
Elizabelle
Another thing: maybe the “Suicide Caucus” of Tea Partiers is personally safe.
But what about Republicans in purple districts? Whose residents have just awoken to what the GOP is capable of? And whose kids and friends are benefitting from Obamacare (not to mention other government services).
I think there’s some hope for 2014.
Elizabelle
@Schlemizel:
Good luck. May we help keep you distracted this weekend? (And only good news allowed Monday.)
gogol's wife
@Kent:
It appears that people actually think that their local meteorologist comes up with all the forecast numbers.
PurpleGirl
@cvstoner:
They are actively
tryingworking to make it fail.FTFY
nemesis
If this manufactured shutdown turns out to be toxic, and who knows, it might, then Ol’ Nate may be forced to update his prediction for the Senate flipping from Dems.
For years, hell, decades, it seems there have been little if any consequences for being a goper. With their in-fighting, radicalism and openly fierce hatred of government, maybe a little of the truth will begin to trickle into the collective conscience regarding the gop. A little awareness could make a huge difference.
A thrid party run by Cruz or Paul could be fabulous.
PurpleGirl
@Patricia Kayden:
I’m sure White voters are still up on their list of loved ones.
Make that White voters who are property owners and are employed by private business.
Ben
The cartoon made me think Obama needs to embrace his inner Gus Fring here.
“Well? Get back to work.”
nemesis
I also wonder aloud how many safe-ish republicans will be primaried by the wingnut faithful baggers, which will drive the so-called “moderates” further right?
Seems to me the battle inside the gop has perked up several notches. They always seem to fall in line, but with Dems having the ability to point to the gop-induced shutdown, along with Dems ability to cite Obamacare as a rousing success, well, the gop may stagger into 2014.
LAC
@Schlemizel: so I guess we will not be calling on you three for any sort of canvassing. Who wants to open the door and have you there with “here’s a flyer for democratic contender so in so. But fuck it, what does it matter? You might as well use this flyer for list making. Thanks ”
The smell of early morning defeatism …wonderful (eye roll)
LAC
@Elizabelle: THIS!!
Felonius Monk
@Schlemizel: Good luck — hope everything turns out negative. Be well.
smedley the uncertain
The 800,00 Federal employees without paychecks cannot make their monthly Health Benefits premium payments normally deducted from those checks.. What happens to their coverage, especially if they are in mid treatment? I know of no provision for the employee to pay the premium directly if they have the money.
Doesn’t affect congressional critters though.
Redshirt
Anecdotal, of course, but I got into a heartening discussion with the two dudes at the gas station about the shutdown, and I specifically framed it as madness that the Republicans would shut down the government over health care for poor people.
Being gas station employees, they aren’t rich, and we’re very interested in Obamacare. I told them about the website and how slick it was, and they said they’d check it out.
It was kinda heart warming.
Schlemizel
@Ella in New Mexico:
I agree 100%! We need a sugar daddy like the Koch bros to make this happen. AT the very least we should do everything possible to encourage the Pautards & teabaggers to field candidates
Schlemizel
@LAC:
What you see as defeatism I see as reason to redouble effort. I happen to live in a safe Dem district with two Dem Senators (one a real Dem even!)
Part of my hopelessness comes from knowing I personally can’t do much about Ohio. I can send a little money maybe but not nearly enough. I was calling into Wisconsin for both the last election & the special they held. I will try to do that again. But we need to realize the game is rigged against us and we better figure out how to deal with that
Jebediah, RBG
My agenda is mostly to feel sorry for myself*. August 14th we lost Otto, best dog ever and the last living bit of my youngest brother, who had been his original owner. As Otto began his decline, we got Chucky, so Juno and she could bond while Otto was still alive.
We just found out that the small growth we had removed from the skin on Chucky’s belly on Tuesday is stage 2 hemangiosarcoma. If it is confined to her skin, it may be treatable. If not, then she just became a short-timer. I know disease is never “fair” but god damn it she is such a goofy bundle of love and sweetness… and we will have to notify her former family, who loved her very much and still feel attached to her (they couldn’t keep her, but always took very good care of her and still love her very much.)
This shit sucks.
*While being fully aware that there are millions of people with much bigger problems than mine.
Jebediah, RBG
@Schlemizel:
Keeping fingers crossed for a good result for you.
Elizabelle
@Jebediah, RBG:
I hope it’s treatable, and that you don’t have to share any bad news with Chucky’s fans.
Keep us posted.
Jebediah, RBG
@Elizabelle:
Thanks, I will.
4jkb4ia
Gerrit Cole is on the mound. This may be an omen.
As John may or may not know, the Cardinals pitching staff is Wainwright, Joe Kelly and at best uneven. You do not bet against Lance Lynn having his one bad inning.
4jkb4ia
So far, Cole has an RBI, the Cardinals have all of one hit, and Lance Lynn couldn’t get through the fifth inning. The Pirates desperately needed to counteract the scary power of Busch Stadium today.
Yatsuno
@smedley the uncertain: The government is still paying its portion, and once the employees are back in full pay status they will have their portion paid up. Health bennies are totally unaffected by this.