(Jerry van Amerongen – Ballard Street via GoComics.com)
It’s a political cartoon, if you replace the name ‘Martin’ with ‘Ted Cruz (R-Tex)”…
Another happy thought for a Monday morning — here’s Professor Krugman on “Shorting Out the Wiring“:
… Ever since Reagan, the Beltway has treated Republicans as the natural party of government. Sunday talk shows would feature a preponderance of Republicans even if Democrats held the White House and one or both houses of Congress. John McCain was featured on those shows so often you would think he won in 2008.
And there was a general presumption of Republican competence. It’s hard to believe now, but Bush was treated as a highly effective leader who knew what he was doing right up to Katrina, while Clinton — now viewed with such respect — was treated as a bungling interloper for much of his presidency. Even in the last few years there was a rush to canonize Paul Ryan as a superwonk, when it was quite obvious if you looked that politics aside, he was just incompetent at number-crunching.
But I think the last two years have finally killed that presumption. It wasn’t just that Romney lost — his shock, the obvious degree to which his campaign was deluded, was an eye-opener. And now the antics of the Boehner bumblers…
bjacques
“The upper hand is on the other foot.” I’m *so* gonna steal that. As the late Dean Wormer once said, “it’s time that someone to put their foot down. And that foot is me.”
SectionH
It’s funnier with “Martin.”
Thankless task, ALL. But thanks.
Alexandra
Reagan means virtually nothing to those 40 and under, except as some mythical figure. In ten years time, those who are 40 will have been born in 1983. They’ll have grown up, spent their early adult years under Clinton, Bush and Obama… and hopefully, it’ll be pretty clear who will be seen by this generation as the party of competence.
bago
The beltway is filled with security clearances, meaning that nominally deviant behavior is abhorred. Colored hair? Hippie. Piercing? Punk. Any anomalies are instantly shunned, which is why every friggin steak house plays music that you can cash a social security check to. Everyone cashes their third paycheck and nobody rides the elevator to the tenth floor. The city is sick.
OzarkHillbilly
Paul? Meet the Zombies. Just when you think they are dead…
Elizabelle
@Alexandra:
I’m just glad the GOP never succeeded in adding Reagan to Mount Rushmore.
After Nancy passes, I hope we can change the DC airport’s name back to Washington National Airport. It’s both informative (it’s the destination, after all) and honors the first president and nation’s capitol.
Reagan National Airport is a name foisted on us by a GOP Congress. There was NO local groundswell for the name change.
SectionH
I’m just sitting here wowing that Flight Tracking is what it is now.
And I’m sure the US airlines did that one their own, in cooperation.
bago
@Alexandra: Who was that guy? Launched two of the longest wars in the history of the county, crashed the economy almost as hard as it’s ever been wrecked, and cleared a shot-ton of brush. I’m thinking there are some four letter words involved.
bago
Fuckballs mcchrist, autocorrect be goin nuts.
bago
Two typos is not OK.
bago
Who has seven thumbs and is embarrassed? Me and the cast of Two and a Half Men.
Linda Featheringill
My former optimism is fading. It looks like the Righties want to default. That is their goal and it really doesn’t matter what saner people do.
At the present, I can see only two ways out of this situation: Some sort of revolt in the House of Representatives to wrest control from the Teaheadists, or unilateral action on the part of the Administration.
But I’ll admit that the idea about going to a gold standard is interesting.
Alexandra
@bago:
In the various forums I read and post in, for many wingnuts, I’ve noticed a tendency to say that we should forget about Bush or words to that effect. They also seem quite fond of describing him as a liberal. And it comes to mind that they are the same people who tried to hang the specter of Carter around Democrat’s necks for 20 years.
Never let anyone forget the consequences of a Republican presidency.
Linda Featheringill
@bago:
‘Sokay. Don’t worry about it.
OzarkHillbilly
Meet the Zombies
A Tea Party stronghold grapples with government shutdown
“And on any given day, the Tea Party war cry for less government easily resonates with the likes of loggers and hunters forced to co-exist with federal agencies that oversee deep forests the natives managed long before Congress voted to take over the land.”
I know Shannon Co better than the back of my hand and at least as well as any of the locals. I also know the locals and their history in relation to the land and the rivers. The natives managed to damn near destroy the land, rivers and streams. (the streams have in fact been irreversibly altered with gravel from the logging done back in the mid 1800’s). And would again given the chance.
I especially like the complaints from the canoe outfitters about the federal gov’t when it is the federal gov’t that ensures their livelihood by limiting the competition within the Riverways. These people are idiots.
NotMax
@Elizabelle
Yes.
However, they couldn’t have even had they tried, as there is insufficient space with geology suitable* for any more than the four there already.
*The reason the original Jefferson head was destroyed while in progress and instead done at a different part of the display was due to poor quality stone.
Trivia: original plans were for the presidents to be depicted head to waist.
A bill was introduced while the monument was still underway to attempt to add Susan B. Anthony, but instead Congress passed legislation limiting federal funding to sculpting already in progress only.
Kay
I got the healtcare.gov site to work last night for someone else.
It’s still flukey, it took me two tries, but it works, although this individual did not actually purchase (yet) he could have purchased.
I think I understand a little better why it was difficult to get it up. It has to do a lot of things- comparing it to Amazon isn’t accurate. There’s a whole verification of identity step (which is like a credit reporting site, if you’ve ever used one of those) and there seems to be several security layers, more than on any retail site I’ve used (including my business account at a bank).
They better work hard at continuing to improve it. I think a lot of people might have given up after the first attempt, which involved a “page not found” error and then no email verification received (although we got a message that the email had been sent). It probably has to work on the first try.
bago
And people wonder why Iran might be a bit cagey. We only overthrew their democracy for a B.P. oil contract, sold Iraq chemical weapons to destabilize them, invaded the country to their east, and then their west, while holding almost all of the nuclear weapons on the planet while our potential leaders made jokes about bombing them. Other than that…
Baud
@Kay:
Glad there is visible progress. I actually think it will be November before it’s all running smoothly. People will get the word.
Kay
@Baud:
Well, as far as “progress” it’s much, much better. The wait time is all but gone, and the time to verify identity seems to me to be the same as commercial credit reporting sites.
The problem is it’s flukey. The “page not found” error was completely mystifying. Out of nowhere! Things were going so well! Also, I was dealing with a 20 year old joker who thinks it’s funny to type ridiculous answers to security questions. He has to get more grim and serious and miserable :)
Splitting Image
@Linda Featheringill:
I don’t think a default is impossible, but don’t underestimate how hostile to it Wall Street and the Chamber of Commerce are. Hitting the debt limit means the country’s credit rating takes a hit. The credit rating taking a hit means that banks which have invested in treasury bonds to backstop their own investments will find themselves overleveraged. Overleveraged banks means the possibility that one or more of them will go under, and the U.S. government not being able to borrow money means no bailouts for anybody if that happens.
Ordinarily Wall Street would probably be happy to short the market and let the hoi polloi take the lion’s share of any hurt that is coming down, but that won’t be possible this time.
You’ll see teabaggers floating upside-down in the Delaware River and a fleet of limousines fleeing the scene before you see a default. But yeah, Ted Cruz and the Pauls are not kidding. They really are that stupid. The Koch brothers might be too.
raven
@Splitting Image: If the Russians stand to lose any money you can be sure there is a “back channel” dialogue.
Randy P
@NotMax: They could always modify one of those liberals, like Teddy Roosevelt.
I would dearly love to believe Krugman, but I don’t know how much expertise he has in reading tea leaves. (“Dammit Jim, I’m an economist, not a politician”).
On other important matters, since this is an open thread, we went to see Gravity last night. Like many science-fiction-y Hollywood movies, a lot of the physics errors (especially the nature of the initial disaster) were egregious enough to have me grumbling for an hour after the movie, much to my wife’s annoyance.
But still a great movie with an excellent two-person cast. I was surprised to read that both Clooney and Bullock were late choices for casting, and that they in fact wanted some cute little 20-something to play the part of the Ph.D. Mission Specialist biomedical expert. Sigh. Hollywood.
WereBear
@bago: Yes; every time I’ve been there, the smooth sandstone surfaces are unrippled by anything but the dullest and most conservative of dress.
I once did a Lobby Day in a lilac-pink silk suit, and I stood out like Ronald McDonald.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: I think the problem is “back channel” to who.
amk
How about krugman sticking to his forte (which most of us don’t get) and quit trolling us with ryan, bw media and that pow dude (which all of us get) ?
danielx
Clearly those donors don’t know ol’ Ted as well as they ought to by now. There’s only one guiding principle for Ted Cruz – it’s all about Ted, all the time.
Baud
@raven:
Who knows what Obama agreed to in exchange for not bombing Syria? ;-)
amk
Two murkans and one kraut win the Nobel for medicine.
xenos
What is interesting is that they are all pretty intelligent. Through a combination of intellectual laziness, moral vanity, and groupthink they have formed a collective that is less intelligent than its least intelligent member.
OzarkHillbilly
Add this to your “No Sh!t List”: Scalia: ‘I Even Believe In The Devil’
So do I. His name is Antonin Scalia.
Thlayli
@NotMax:
Trivia: original plans were for the presidents to be depicted head to waist.
The original idea.
Matt McIrvin
@Splitting Image: Josh Marshall is freaking out.
MomSense
Well now we know what happens after 30 + years of vilifying the government.
Bill E Pilgrim
I thought that was an interesting take by Paul Krugman about some sort of peak wingnut being reached in the corporate media.
His expertise is in economics yes, on the other hand he’s the only one among all of us who’s actually been on the Sunday talk shows. On one of them at least, on a fairly regular basis. So there is that. Interesting perspective.
Baud
@Kay:
Appenently, one of the major gaming companies has had major issues with their servers caused in part by high demand. I’m not a gamer so I don’t know the details. But it happens.
dmsilev
@amk:
Shutting down NIH will keep that nonsense from happening again.
(sigh)
Linda Featheringill
@Matt McIrvin:
Yes, Josh is getting a bit emotional. But I’m not entirely sure that he’s wrong and freaking out just may be the psychologically sane reaction to the situation.
Kay
@Baud:
Right, but I think it’s true it isn’t solely high demand. The wait times are fine (now). It has to work once they get in.
I have to say, though, in their defense, the damning comparisons to commercial sites for buying car insurance are bullshit. I’ve helped people buy state minimum insurance online. It takes longer than 10 minutes. You can maybe get thru the quote process in ten minutes, but there’s a signing/documentation process after that, if you need to carry a piece of paper in your car, which you do.
The Pale Scot
New Album coming out
Lucius – Wildewoman (Honey I’m Home Session)
Botsplainer
@Splitting Image:
Did you see how enmeshed the Kochs are in holocaust denial?
https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/shuts-down-the-holocaust/43201b3a2936ec68c823ff596b0a27c529ea9350/
Those two fuckers need to experience the fate of the Nazi leadership in “Inglourious Basterds”, along with all their bought flunkies.
In the very least, some enterprising reporter needs to put Eric Cantor on the spot about the ties of his shadowy patrons to holocaust denial. The segment should play well for his older relatives, all of whom will be screeching “shanda fur de goyim” to the heavens (and in unison).
Another Botsplainer
Sorry, if there is a Default the Republicans will pay no price for their part as the root cause. Between the MSM and the Wurlitzer at least 45% or so will believe Obama is at fault because he wouldn’t negotiate. There are many “factions” of 1%er’s. Some of them probably are worried about a Default. Others of them, and we know who they are, probably figure its worth the gamble. I guess we’ll find out pretty soon.
Randy P
Maybe Krugman iks on to something. Article in the WaPo about “rumblings” in Tea-Partier home districts. Turns out those rumblings are from the corporate types, who want to primary some of the nuttier TPers. No indication that the voters feel similarly.
John O
I don’t think Josh is freaking out at all. I think his take is coldly realistic.
I’m not seeing a way out, either. Sometimes things HAVE to burn to get renewed, and I’m hoping like hell this is one of those times.
But renewal is a tricky, mutating thing…
Patrick
Last time I checked (about a year ago), this is still the case. Whether it is is ABC, CBS, NBC or CNN, they routinely invite 2 Republicans and 1 Democrat. World’s greatest democracy…
gene108
@Alexandra:
I’m not so hopeful.
What I’ve seen from folks in their 20’s is that they have grown up with government that has always been dysfunctional. You have the Clinton era scandals, Bush & Co.’s lies to get us into Iraq, and now the NSA scandal and a terrible economy that has hit them hard and that the government has not been able to turn around or seemingly devote attention to it anymore.
These are the political grandchildren of the disillusionment that hit the Great Depression era adults and Baby Boomers caused by Watergate and Vietnam that helped compel so many to buy into Reagan’s “government is the problem” philosophy.
They are very cynical about what government can do for them.
They maybe socially liberal, but they still are not buying what Democrats are selling about government being something that can improve their lives.
gene108
@Elizabelle:
Or to currency.
Kay
@Another Botsplainer:
Part of it is the huge egos and self-satisfaction. There’s all this misty-eyed bullshit about when we “reached across the aisle” coming from the individuals who allegedly “reached across the aisle” in the Clinton years.
Republicans tried to remove a democratically-elected President by abusing the impeachment process. That’s what happened. The one and only time they all agreed was when they went on a six-month bender of blaming poor people for everything, in “welfare reform”. How hard is it to beat up on poor people? It’s like the national sport. Tough, tough decisions they made, in a bipartisan manner. The bravery was just incredible.
John O
@Patrick:
A simple matter of self-interest. Most Beltway VSP’s are rich (and white), and they enjoy their power and cocktail weenies as must as the next person.
liberal
@Splitting Image:
I’m hardly an expert on these things, but I would assume that there are many ways the Fed can bail out banks without the Treasury creating more debt. Also, I thought perhaps the FDIC isn’t directly funded by Treasury.
Baud
@Randy P:
It’s about turning people out. Turnout in primaries is shockingly low, especially on the GOP side.
fka AWS
I am curious about something: With the incessant manufactured drama that has been drummed up by the tea party and the house (and GOP state politicians), could it be that the American people (aside from the 27 percent) might just fall into shock over the whole thing?
I was just curious, because I think my outrage/frustration/despondency level has just about peaked, and then they come out with some more bullshit.
amk
well, the chinese are pissed.
Waspuppet
@NotMax: That was never the point anyway. I’m sure they’d have put Reagan’s head up there if they could, but the real point was to have been seen supporting the idea. Which is not creepy or Stalinist at all, no way.
As for Krugman, I think he’s being wildly optimistic. Once the shutdown is over, I give it a week before Our Media Stars find a Wise, Reasonable Republican proposal to criticize the Democrats for not getting behind just because they’ve got some fancy words and numbers that prove it won’t work.
And that’s only if the Republicans get nothing out of the shutdown resolution. If they get something, no matter how trivial, OMS will anoint a Genius Of The Shutdown and demand he be elected president by voice vote.
Suffern ACE
@Baud: yeah. But I’m thinking the corporate types have been giving money and not running campaigns for years. They probably wouldn’t know how to turnout voters if the voters came with instructions.
I’m going to guess that the turnout machine will be “let’s buy some air time.”
Baud
@Suffern ACE:
I think you’re correct about that.
agrippa
I have no good reason to respect the Beltway pundits. They are living in a echo chamber. And, that is their good point.
The GOP has had three competent Presidents since LIncoln: Grant ( much better than what some think that he was); TR and Eisenhower. And, Eisenhower played golf.
I do think that GOP wants a default. Mainly, for reasons of passion. Fact and logic have nothing to do with it. Wanting default is a matter of humor, dignity and respect. Obama, and the other Democrats have insulted all three.
Jay in Oregon
@John O:
Just remember, the fuckwits who are blowing up the country also get a say in what replaces it. Republic of Gilead, anyone?
Splitting Image
@liberal:
There might be ways they can do it, but if it takes them more than six hours to figure out how, the problem will spiral out of control. Last time around, they had literally hours to decide what to do about Lehman collapsing. This time, they will not only have to figure out what to do, but how to do it.
Best guess is that Obama would ignore the debt limit, authorize the Treasury to continue issuing T-bills, and dare the Republicans to impeach him. As other people have pointed out, this isn’t simply an internal matter for the U.S. Russia and China have billions invested in U.S. Treasury bills, as do most of the country’s other allies. What the G.O.P. is doing is like treating the lend-lease program the U.S. had with Great Britain during World War II entirely as a budgetary matter, as though it had no other consequences.
Suffern ACE
@agrippa: when other countries teeter in default these days, austerity seems to run down, not up. So why should they worry about any programs being cut that they like? Programs for the layabouts will be the hardest hit.
Cervantes
@Kay: Well, they “agreed” on NAFTA, too — but I guess that’s not too far from blaming (or rather, victimizing) poor people, either.
Matt McIrvin
@Jay in Oregon:
Even if they don’t, there’s the problem that a debt default would make some aspects of the austerian/goldbugger view of the world actually true. Imagine that it were almost impossible for the US government to borrow money at reasonable rates, the dollar crashed, and productivity dropped into the abyss. That would be the Austrian-economics nightmare of what a modern economy inevitably leads to, to a T. Even a Democratic-led government would have to act sort of like an austerity regime under those circumstances. Stimulus would be impossible, just like the goldbugs insist.
Cervantes
@Elizabelle: After Nancy passes, I hope we can change the DC airport’s name back to Washington National Airport. It’s both informative (it’s the destination, after all) and honors the first president and nation’s capitol.
Exactly — it was already named after a president. Morons.
Anyhow, I’ve never once called it — and probably never will call it — anything but National Airport.
sparrow
@gene108: I’m just one, but I’m a counter-example. I’ve always appreciated libraries, clean water, my school, etc. and felt very strongly that I had a civic duty to vote and to participate in government. Born in 1983.
My co-horts, I think, do appreciate all these things & want to believe in the government. When they say “they ought to DO something!” about a perceived public problem, in the back of their mind it is possible that something will be done. (I contrast this to my friends from Southern Europe who’s reflex is “all government is corrupt, good luck trying to change anything).
The problem is that they (and probably all of us) do not appreciate the EXTENT to which government improves our lives. I don’t think about egg inspections when I buy them, nor do I think about lead exposure rules when I rent an apartment. But it’s all in there.
I once watched a reality show on the BBC (on vacation) where they took a single street in the suburbs of London and cut off ALL government services, and returned the tax money in exchange. In about 2 weeks these people were FREAKING OUT about how to get rid of garbage, clean up graffiti, pay for an elderly man’s nurse care, help poor neighbor’s with their rent, light the streets at night, etc. I would like to repeat that exercise with most of the red states. Or at least send everyone a “bill” showing what they get for their taxes.
Elizabelle
@Kay:
TPM: A Programmer’s Perspective on Healthcare.gov and ACA Marketplaces
This might have been posted on earlier threads.
I haven’t gone online yet, but will soon. Figured I’d give them a bit more time to work out the bugs. Will report back, as others have done.
Matt McIrvin
I really don’t buy the idea that the crisis will cause Peak Wingnut. The problem is that, as usual, the Republicans position themselves as the anti-government, anti-politician party, so all dysfunction in Washington helps them even if they directly caused it.
In a nutshell, it’s “I’m incompetent -> politicians are incompetent -> I’m the anti-politician -> vote for me!”
During the Bush years, I wondered how long it was possible to run the entire government while still posturing as anti-government. Somebody pointed out that the Soviet Communists managed to be “revolutionary” for quite a long time.
But in the Bush case, the answer seems to have been “until 2006.” They’ve found a new angle, though: if you can still run the entire government through obstructionist behavior while mostly being the opposition, you can keep up the charade.
Patricia Kayden
@Elizabelle: Especially given what Reagan did to the Air Traffic Controllers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/opinion/reagan-vs-patco-the-strike-that-busted-unions.html?_r=0
Joseph Nobles
I had jury duty today, or I thought I did. Turns out the summons is for tomorrow, not today. Has anyone else ever had a jury duty summons for a day other than Monday? This seems obscene.
Tommy
@sparrow: Let me see if I can explain myself. I live in a blue dog district on a good day. But my local government works. Now I am in IL and in the election where we voted 57% for McCain we voted 63% to raise our taxes to build a new high school. An election before that we voted to raise our taxes to build, I kid you not, more parks. You can’t walk a few blocks and not find a park, a “green” area. Heck I have world-class public transportation. Bus and rail. Last year we got some money from the Federal government and wired all the government buildings and schools with fiber optics.
In 2000 we had 5,700 residents. In 2010 almost 9,000. People want to come live in my town. We’ve figured out how to make government work for us and we’re kind of happy about it.
Suffern ACE
@Joseph Nobles: maybe they get Arbor Day off?
Matt McIrvin
@Joseph Nobles: Since the Massachusetts system is “one day or one trial”, they have to have fresh jurors every day, so naturally the summons are for all days of the workweek.
WereBear
Tea Partying is a sweet gig, isn’t it?
The stupider they act, the more their followers LOVE it. The less they fit themselves to reality, the more their Base applauds them for matching their own prejudices.
The more dire the consequences of their actions, the more terrible things they can blame on the Democrats.
We have to shrink them down to the 27% they truly are. Because even a 5% shift is deadly to them.
Matt McIrvin
Years ago on LiveJournal, user “tongodeon” called the process “shitting on Obama’s carpet and calling him a poor housekeeper.”
Tommy
@Elizabelle: That is a very interesting read. Obama has done some pretty interesting things from a web development/software point of view. For example the White House site is built on Drupal, an open source software product. For those that don’t what that means, well the source code of the product is given away for free. It lets anybody write code off of it.
I am a WordPress developer. Heck it is what this site is based off of. Another open source product. It lets me develop sites for a fraction of the cost of a closed source product. Now full disclosure, folks are kind of pissed at Obama. His campaign won’t release the code they used in the last campaign. You know they used a product that was developed by a community of millions, yet you won’t let us see what you did.
gene108
@sparrow:
Yeah, I was generalizing, but I think the idea that we just have to wait until the younglings get old enough to vote and there will be Democratic/liberal/Scandinavian style socialism in America for generations to come is getting ahead of the reality of people’s attitudes towards government.
I think the “[I] want to believe in government” is sort of the dividing line between pre-Watergate/Vietnam attitudes toward government and what we have today.
People actually believed government made people’s lives better. This is why LBJ won saying he’d use the government to eradicate poverty, in 1964.
Hell, Bush, Jr. had to run on “compassionate conservatism” because a government that was just geared towards tax cuts for the rich would have sunk his campaign in 2000, so he had to have a conservative alternative to how government can help the non-rich, thus faith based initiatives, Medicare Part D and NCLB were born. Contrast this to Romney’s campaign in 2012, which was based completely on transferring money to the rich and he still go 47% of the popular vote.
I think there are people, who would like to believe in government, but still have to be sold that government can be a force for good.
It is not a given that the younger generation views government as the same benevolent force the Great Depression era and early Baby Boomers, pre-Watergate, did, so I do not see the demographic shift being slam dunk for Democrats to maintain a majority for ever and ever.
There’s still doubt about government and Democrats are part of government, i.e. part of the problem. I believe, despite winning the 18-29 year old vote in 2012 pretty handily, Obama lost white men between 18-29 to Romney.
It’s not going to be as easy to uproot Republicans, as some people think, just based on demographics.
EDIT:
Obama did lose the youth white vote in 2012
Link
Feudalism Now!
If Byron York is to be believed, the Republicans are comparing the Shutdown to Gettysburg. The Neo-Confederacy of Dunces may be self aware enough to sense a change. They will still burn the world down, but they know their Sherman is out there.
TAPX486
What I’m concerned about is the long war and the GOP is winning that one. At the federal level there will be no new revenues and at best the democrats can keep discretionary spending at the level in the CR. Not only did they cave on that but they allowed the GOP to throw in an additional 19 billion for defense. At worst the Gop will win concessions (after the debt/shutdown are resolved) to cut spending even more. Even if the democrats hang tough federal spending is not keeping up with inflation or population growth.
At the state and local level it is just as bad. The federal GOP says leave it to the states but the state gop says don’t do it at all. We are down 300k teachers since 2008 but the number of school kids keeps growing. Police/fire/infrastructure have all ben cut at the state level. People want good roads but won’t pay the taxes to repair them. In Texas, for heavens sake, they are reverting to gravel/dirt roads in some rural areas because they can’t afford to pave them. This is third world level mentality.
The GOP has succeed in making the anti-tax crusade a corner stone of American life and I don’t see anything that will change that. Even Obama has bought into it by repealing only the top tier Bush tax cuts. All of the tax cuts should have been allowed to lapse, economy permitting. I don’t remember people dying the street from hunger after Clinton raised taxes in 93. In fact we actually had a pretty good economy and a budget surplus.
MazeDancer
Republicans love armchair war. It makes them feel powerful without risking any actual wounding. And it monopolizes the media.
As long as they can be the “we hate Government” party, the media serves them. But rebels need a cause against which to rebel. It is advantageous to Boehner to maintain the optics of “courage” in the “fighting”, but cannot see the advantage for Boehner in allowing default.
The crazy Tea Party does not understand anything except hatred and that they win in the media. They don’t understand government or economics. Boehner has deep experience with both gov and economics. A shattered US – and world – economy that happens because of Boehner does not help him. Theatrics help him. So what would help him the most is a last minute “clean” CR, that has a short extension on it. So that the battle can always wage.
WereBear
@sparrow: Do you have the name of that BBC reality show? I’ve searched for it to no avail.
some guy
Hate to switch topics, but it looks like our allies in Al Qaeda have been improving thew accuracy of their artillery barrages raining down on civilians in Damascus. Firing shells at an Orthodox Church during a baptism is one way to win friends and influence people back home in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United States, that’s for sure. Keep up the good work, Al Qaeda, the taxpayers of the United States have your back!
http://news.yahoo.com/damascus-mortar-attack-kills-eight-state-media-143004870.html
shelly
. On Morning Joe, Scarborough was ranting on and on, “Where are the adults in the Republican party? Where are they? George W. wouldn’t have stood for this. Reagan wouldn’t?” In other words Joe’s having it both ways. It’s really the Prezident’s fault.
I’m so tired of this zombie argument. ‘Why doesn’t the President just make them do…..whatever.’ And this probably from the same people who’ve accused Obama of being a tyrant , dictator, usurper, etc.
Well, folks, the Prez can’t “make’ Congress do anything.
Chyron HR
@some guy:
And as always, you’re channeling Rush Limbaugh “from the left”, right?
some guy
@Chyron HR:
which faction of Al Qaeda do you like best in Syria? I’m guessing it’s the 70% of the Fee Syrian Army that recently signed up for Al Qaeda you like best, right? As long as we keep funding and supporting these “moderate” extremists the “extreme” extremists will really be feeling the heat. Victory or death, amirite?
sparrow
@WereBear:
Here is the wiki entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Street_That_Cut_Everything
I think last time I checked you can’t download it, but I didn’t check all the usual torrent places.
Corner Stone
@Splitting Image:
I thought we were at war with Russia and China?
the Conster
@shelly:
Did you see his reaction when Mika said that Cruz and his compadres hate the president more than they love their country, which is really scary? He wanted to hit her.
Cervantes
@NotMax: Trivia: original plans were for the presidents to be depicted head to waist.
Well, that depends on what you mean by “original.” Initially the idea was to depict Western heroes, including Lakota Chief Red Cloud (who had defeated the US Army). What Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor, and his supporters did instead was to enshrine “Manifest Destiny,” a perversion of the original idea.
More trivia: Borglum was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Before desecrating Mt. Rushmore (or rather, the Mountain of the Six Grandfathers), Borglum planned and began work on a memorial to the Confederacy (Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Stonewall Jackson) at Stone Mountain in Georgia.
Even more trivia: The Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) compelled the Sioux (including the Lakota) to give up the Western Plains, restricting their sovereignty to a small area that included the Black Hills. But when gold was discovered there a few years later by Custer (yes, that one), the Treaty was ignored and even this small area was invaded and taken by the US Army. What’s amusing (if you ignore the betrayal and mass murder) is that the gold did not last very long; the manual labor to construct “Mount Rushmore” was done by unemployed miners.
More trivia than you can shake a stick at: In 1920 or so, even before work on the monument began, the Lakota (or possibly all the Sioux, I don’t remember) sued the US government for violating the Treaty of Fort Laramie. In 1979, a federal court offered compensation of about 20 million dollars, which the tribes refused to accept. The money was deposited in a fund that still exists, and is still rejected by the tribes. Today, Lakota reservations are the most impoverished parts of the country. Ziebach County in South Dakota, for example, has more than half its inhabitants below the poverty line; and among children the poverty rate exceeds 70%.
What is “Mount Rushmore” a monument to, again?
Corner Stone
@Tommy:
It takes a brave man to admit that. Kudos.
shortstop
I don’t know why Krugman is so uncharacteristically sanguine here…while I, not usually a raging pessimist, see no reason at all to think the Beltway will stop thinking of Republicans as the natural party of government and assuming GOP competence. They’re treating this Congress as an inexplicable aberration rather than the inevitable result of Republicans defining deviancy down over the past 30 years.
Tommy
@shelly: My parents are not liberals. But they are sane. If chat about this or that we can often find common ground. It is kind of strange how often it happens. But these Tea Party folks I see on my TV I can’t find common ground with. But I don’t have to argue with my parents that the Earth is round. That it is more than 4,000 years old. They are not worried black helicopters from the UN are coming for their guns. I don’t know how you debate those folks if you can’t agree on the basics.
Botsplainer
@Corner Stone:
LOL
FYWP
hoodie
Like Josh Marshall, I wonder if people simply can’t process how bad this could be. The market isn’t pricing it now because it is outside of any market experience. No one knows how to hedge it, so they’re just putting it out of their minds. For example, I went to Barry Ritholtz’ site this morning, as he tends to be one of the sanest, least CNBC/Wall St. Journal financial types around. He notes the risks of extended shutdown (30% drop in the market) and default, but is not in a panic because he assumes that cooler heads will prevail and sane Republicans with eventually save the day. You have to wonder if he is badly mistaken because the kind of Wall St. Republicans he knows are not representative and, therefore, he does not fully understand the current insanity in Congress. You have guys like Peter King openly saying the whole thing is bad idea, even admitting that the shutdown is the GOP’s fault, but still refusing to sign a discharge petition. This asshole thinks he might run for president. Who does he think is going to get the ball rolling? Can’t at least a handful of them go out on a limb now so others will be more inclined to do so when the moment arrives? Where the fuck is McConnell? Christie? Are they stupid enough to think this is any way to conduct business?
Part of this story is the extremism of the Tea Partiers, but an arguably bigger part is the refusal of establishment Republicans to take any responsibility for enabling them even though the same establishment Republicans always presume they are entitled to run everything. They may think they can play this out as a way of discrediting the Tea Party within the GOP and then intercede at the last moment. That’s taking one hell of a risk (one risk Ritholtz notes is undermining the dollar’s role as reserve currency, costing us trillions in additional debt service costs). The panic can start any time, it doesn’t require an actual default. World wars have started with similar miscalculations.
Tommy
@Corner Stone: LOL. I was a lurker here for ages before I commented. I saw the rollout of the upgrade here and I like John but I will just say, well that wasn’t how it should have happened. Honestly I could build this site out in a few hours. It ain’t rocket science.
Shakezula
The modern day GOP isn’t performing for America, it is performing for itself. When Bush was in office it became a gaggle of teens lip synching some auto tuned nightmare of a pop hit into a hairbrush. Now they’re at the point where everyone has had too much sugar and they’re starting to fight over the brush and which song to play next.
Omnes Omnibus
@some guy: Yeah, gassing the rebels would really make things better, dipshit.
agrippa
There is nothing that I can say or do to have an effect on the outcome. Mainly, it is up to those 535 in Congress to decide what they are going to do.
Boehner can decide to allow a vote on a clean CR. I expect that he will not.
Elizabelle
@TAPX486:
I don’t understand why Democrats have not countered by explaining, over and over and over, why taxes are important in a civil society.
You have too many people out there thinking “well, we have too much government anyway.”
@sparrow:
I would love to see that show. People in the UK probably get tired of others bitching about the National Health, when it’s literally a lifesaver.
Also wish our government would print out Medicare and Social Security checks in red ink once the recipient’s contribution has been exhausted.
People have no idea.
mai naem
@shelly: I don’t know if it’s my hopeful imagination but it sure seems to me that Ho’s been getting back more pushback for his stupid comments from Mika and the other guests on the show.
I am really beginning to warm up to Hecate’s suggestions. I think Obama should give him a deadline for a deal and tell him the deal is only good till then. After that day, a new deal with more stuff for him starts with a new deadline. That deadline goes, better deal for him with new deadline and on and on. He could ask for 8 judicial nominees, then 16, then 24 etc. Also add in some labor stuff, Post office stuff, climate change stuff, family leave etc. etc. Elections have consequences, like the Republicans liked to remind us in 2005.
Tommy
@Botsplainer: When I started using WordPress about six years ago I quickly found out something. That you get what you pay for, and using a free theme or plugin, not such a good idea. I’d look at the code, want to tweak it, and find out it was terrible. I’d spend more time trying to work with said code then it would take me to just write it.
Now with that said I’d love to see the backend of this site. I am willing to bet, well I could change the user experience here 110%.
Alexandra
@Elizabelle:
The BBC show is called “The Street That Cut Everything.” Maybe you can find a copy of it somewhere. I didn’t see it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Street_That_Cut_Everything
Whoops,already posted.
Elizabelle
@mai naem:
Link please on Hecate and her suggestions.
Sound great to me.
geg6
@gene108:
Well, I spend every work day with college kids and that’s not what they articulate to me at all. They all desperately want government to work, hate the GOP because it won’t let the government work and that Obama is trying to help them. They are especially happy about the ACA and frightened to death that their student aid will be cut off for the next semester because the GOP has shut down the government and wants to ruin the US’s credit. They aren’t cynical or bitter. Just pissed. And at all the right people, media included.
nemesis
Agree with comments about markets having yet to fully price in default. The markets are watching, waiting. Seems the financial powers are in denial about the true nature of the depth of bagger depravity.
If we are at an impasse by weeks end and the rhetoric continues to be toxic, then watch out below. The Street will over react violently.
TAPX486
@Elizabelle: I’m not sure why they haven’t been able to make that argument, other than they are already starting on their goal line. Heck who LIKES to pay taxes. I know I don’t. I realize it is the price we pay for a civilized society but enough people haven’t figured that out that it is a losing issue for the D’s. Just look at the Hoverround crowd demanding that the government not touch their soc. security and medicare . They seem to have no idea that it is a government program supported by tax dollars. I sometimes think the Democrats would have more luck running o a platform supporting legalized pedophilia then one raising taxes
Alexandra
@geg6:
My other hope for millenials is that they won’t be ardent churchgoers or great consumers of talk radio. The evangelical wing of the Republican party contributes a huge amount of time, money and resources. Cut that Moral Majority leg off and the stool hopefully falls over.
Tommy
@Elizabelle: No they don’t. My little rural town buys our power through a co-op of other small rural towns. They told us last year that we needed to upgrade our facilities. It would cost $1.7M. We just did it. In less then six months. I can’t stress this enough we rewired our entire town. The power lines in my town look like something from the future. We drove the poles into the ground and just got it done. These things can be done.
Omnes Omnibus
@mai naem: @Elizabelle: I think Hecate’s suggestion is a bad idea. It legitimizes taking the debt ceiling hostage.
TAPX486
@nemesis: Business types and Wall street have one goal – lower their own taxes. As long as that is the primary GOP position, then Wall street will have their back.
Sure they took a hit in 2008 (could only visit the London tailor 3 times rather than 4 and maybe had to let one of the gardeners go) but they have recovered quite nicely by now. I think they figure the same thing will happen. Heck the stock brokers make money on trades wither the market is going up or down.
geg6
@Alexandra:
I think you are getting your wish. We have a Christianist club here on campus and it used to pack ’em in for meetings. I noticed last year and, especially, this semester that the membership has dwindled down to about a dozen. And forget about talk radio. Hell, none of them listen to ANY conventional radio. It’s all online now and even that isn’t as popular as their own playlists on their phones. The only news they pay attention to is on TDS and Colbert with some ESPN thrown in for sports.
Corner Stone
@mai naem: Hecate’s suggestion is an interesting tactic for negotiations between private parties. Not sure I would ever attempt it IRL. Probably work pretty well if you were in a position of ultimate power, like a prison warden or CO of Gitmo.
It is an absolute mistake for the president to try any variation of it. The best thing he can do is continue his theme of “clean CR, no extras for doing your job”. That’s something people can easily recognize, even if some portion think it’s a “not negotiating” stance.
If you start muddling it up with judicial nominees, etc, then people lose the thread very quickly, even those who might otherwise nominally support his stance.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone:
Exactly.
Corner Stone
@Elizabelle:
IMO, it’s mainly because the people backing elected D’s get angry when the D tries to do that.
We lost that fight a long time ago. Not sure what kind of candidate could revive it.
Tommy
@geg6: My mom is a Catholic. I am an atheist, but I go to that church for weddings and funerals. The Priest and I get along. Nice guy. He changed the lethargy cause he felt that younger people didn’t get it. Little changes. Somebody with more time on their hand recorded him and sent the recording to the Bishiop and he got shit canned. It was a huge story here, cause well I guess that doesn’t happen that often. IMHO that is what is wrong with the church. I mean a guy that as an atheist I can connect with …. well maybe the church would like more of them around.
Schlemizel
Just heard the 2 sweetest words in the English language:
BE NINE
So I guess I dodged the bullet this time
Omnes Omnibus
@Schlemizel: Great news.
Elizabelle
@Schlemizel:
All right!! Great news.
beltane
@geg6: The feeling I get from young people, even those who have Republican parents, is that the GOP is the party of drool-stained old men who are hanging around long after their expiration date. to them, the Republican party is like that moldy, unidentified object stinking up the refrigerator. They are definitely a presence to be reckoned with, but only because no one knows how to dispose of them.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, I think you and Corner Stone are right here on the clean continuing resolution.
No hostage taking. Not this time and not next time.
Belafon
@Elizabelle: Because it would be pointless to explain. Remember, the Democrats are liars and the government can’t do anything right.
gogol's wife
@Schlemizel:
Wonderful! (First I thought this was a WordPress garbling of a Valentine saying Be Mine)
catclub
@liberal: The actual credit rating of the US has so far made no difference to the interest rates paid on bonds. It was S&P that lowered the rating, … because they were about to be indicted by the DOJ for their incompetence in rating mortgage backed securities as triple A. The did that in a fit of pique, as the Dinsdales would say.
catclub
@Schlemizel: Good news. Cancer diagnosis Bingo.
Matt McIrvin
Of course, the more we talk up how KRAZY the Republicans are and how they’ll totally default, the more pressure there is on Obama to cave.
We should really be talking up how insane Obama is. He’s like a crazy mad dog! He’ll send us all to hell!!! You can’t stop him; you should totally blink first.
Corner Stone
@Matt McIrvin: Ha! The old Gene Wilder trick, eh?
Elizabelle
WaPost: hmmm. Are they doing this to gauge whether Boehner can even get this through his caucus?
fidelio
@Schlemizel: Congratulations! There are some gifts life can give you that you’d just as soon not have. I’m glad when you got this package open it said “Just kidding!”
Chris
@bago:
Definitely.
The notion of Iran’s leaders as crazy Koran-thumpers guided by the voices in their heads is just the usual propagandistic bullshit. They’re behaving exactly like any government in their dire situation would be. (And it’s worthwhile to note that despite all the screams of how they would totally nuke Jerusalem the second they had the chance because they’re all crazy genocidal savages… during the Iran-Iraq War, it wasn’t them who used chemical weapons on civilian targets, it was the modernist, secularized, Western and Soviet backed government of Iraq. Funny that).
beltane
@Matt McIrvin: Well, if you think about it, he does posses telepathic powers and can make mentally ill people do crazy things. And if he’s really the Antichrist, the way they say he is, all bets are off. The Obamassiah is all powerful, man, and he won’t just bring about a default but the End Times as well.
Chris
@sparrow:
Pretty much. Starting with the Baby Boomers (who came of age just around the time Medicare and Medicaid went up), you’ve got a population that was essentially handed a (mostly) developed society on a silver platter and has no idea how that society came into being, or what it could otherwise look like. So they think sure, we could totally gut most of the government, all the things I take for granted would continue, the only change is my taxes would go down.
TAPX486
@Chris: The degree to which Americans hate taxes and big government is not really new. It has been cranked up to a 12 in recent years but is it’s new. In 1954 Ike proposed building a modern high-speed highway system based on the German Autobahn model. He had been impressed with the way German troops could be moved quickly on the Autobahn and he remembered a very long and painful cross country trip in the 1920’s that he took as a young Army officer.
No even the popular Ike with a sane Congress knew that if he proposed the Interstate highway act, it would go down to defeat. But by naming it the National Defense highway act, it would pass and so it did. Now I was 8 at the time and could not figure out why we would build all of these expensive highways just so the army could move its troops and tanks around in case of a Russian invasion. It seemed a waste to leave them unused all that rest of the time (remember I was only 8). So those arguing for expensive government programs have always had an uphill battle sort of some great calamity like the Depression. And for today’s generation they are just used to hoping on the interstate and driving all day without paying a toll or seeing a red light on every corner.
Chris
@shortstop:
Ditto. Furthermore, I think Washington’s been “wired for Republicans” pretty much since the Gilded Age, in the sense that Republicans have been the party of the well off white guys who run the media and the corporate people who own them for at least that long. The Republican Party itself changed during that era, but I’d be curious to know if the party of the DC press corps ever did; I somehow doubt it.
patroclus
@TAPX486: Uh, Congress wasn’t “sane” in 1954. It was filled with McCarthyites and crazy Republicans who wanted to repeal the New Deal and try all Truman appointees for treason. After seeing “sane” bills go down and down and appropriations bills constantly stalling in early 1953, Ike ended up making friends with Rayburn and LBJ and worked with them to get bills passed – specifally including the interstate highway bill, which had long been a Rayburn dream. Mr. Sam even got the funding formula proposed by Ike and Lucius Clay changed to be more progressive – I know it’s called the Eisenhower Interstate Highway system, but it really should be called the Rayburn System.
StringOnAStick
@Botsplainer: That NSFW link is only free for another 4 hours, but wow, is that just about the best example you’ve seen of why independent journalism is critical to a functioning democracy? The Koch’s are into holocaust denial up to their richfuck necks, and yet we hear nothing about it, but the same behavior was used as the main Shrub argument for why we can’t even consider talking to Iran while the last Iranian president was in power (who’s name I can no longer spell on the fly).
I really think we could get some serious mileage out of the Koch’s holocaust denialism, the question is how to get it out there?
StringOnAStick
@sparrow:
It’s your last sentence that concerns me, because those Southern Europeans have been so royally screwed by austerity, no wonder they are so cynical. And what the rethugs would like to do here is create that level of screwedness, and get that exact same result. I think that’s been the long game, along with making people’s lives so miserable and scrabbling that they don’t bother to find time to vote or be politically informed. Win-win for the rethugs.
Chris
@Botsplainer:
Oh my GOD! (I somehow missed the initial post…)
I knew Papa Koch was a Mussolini admirer, but I guess somehow I’d never made the connection to assume the family was into Holocaust denial, because I figured he was into Mussolini & co because they were anti-leftist enforcers rather than because all the racial theories and shit.
Serves me right for not thinking it through and remembering, once again, that the racists and the economic elitists are two sides of the same coin. After all, even if the Kochs were just in it for the money and didn’t harbor antisemitism “in their hearts,” as our racist apologists laughingly call it, they’d still be perfectly willing to drum it up if they thought it would help their cause. And that makes them basically no different from any other fascist.
StringOnAStick
@hoodie:
It hadn’t crossed my mind before, but doesn’t running up debt service costs actually benefit the long-term rethug/Koch plan to kill the social safety net? And since most of the truly wealthy make their money on interest income, doesn’t running up interest rates also benefit them as well? Shit, that’s scary. It really might be in their long-term economic benefit to totally screw the economy since they will still remain on top of an albeit smaller pile.
ruemara
@Elizabelle: You can watch right on the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011crrw
or, at least a bit of it.
ruemara
@Schlemizel: KONE GRATS
Fred
@NotMax: It would be possible to rework Jefferson into Reagan. I mean Jefferson was a Democrat after all so of little import. Really little more than a glorified stenographer yaknow. ; )
karen
@Botsplainer:
If the Koch creatures are Holocaust Deniers, how long before the textbooks start staying it never happened?
May they grow like a turnip with their head in the ground.