Like the scribblings on a bathroom wall in an insane asylum:
If only he had cut the capital gains tax instead of a stimulus bill.
Unspoofable.
by John Cole| 73 Comments
This post is in: Black Jimmy Carter, Clown Shoes, I Read These Morons So You Don't Have To, The Failed Obama Administration (Only Took Two Weeks)
Like the scribblings on a bathroom wall in an insane asylum:
If only he had cut the capital gains tax instead of a stimulus bill.
Unspoofable.
Comments are closed.
JenJen
Destroyed? Obama is destroying jobs, now?
WTF is with these people? Unspoofable, indeed.
Speaking of whackjobs, Orly Taitz is back!
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/09/04/taitz/index.html
Mayken
Wow! Just wow! The amazing power of teh Stoopid… really, I weep for my country some days.
General Winfield Stuck
Yes. You have to hand it to the wingers, when they go, it’s all in all the time. The asylum surrounds us.
Josh
I’m relatively young still (21). I was talking to my grandmother, who started to feel apathy and in some cases, hate, towards the country during the Vietnam years because of how people were acting.
I never thought I’d ever feel that way, especially when Obama was elected. I had felt vindicated, because she didn’t believe she would ever live to see a black man elected president (this was compounded because she grew up in the civil rights era and remembers exactly when she heard that MLK was assassinated and how hurt she felt).
After all of this craziness, and this inexplicable stupid, I think I’m starting to see how she could have felt that way back then. I constantly have to remind myself that losing hope in our country and our government is not an option. Losing faith in the rule of law and the constitution is not an option.
I think most of these problems exist because people stopped caring.
Calouste
Hey, a post in the “I Read These Morons So You Don’t Have To” category that actually includes all the relevant stuff instead of just a link so we don’t actually have to go over to another site and actually read whatever we don’t have to read.
But yeah, context, like facts, has a liberal bias. Remind me again of those good old months earlier in the year when we only lost 500-600,000 jobs per month, you could still feel the aftereffects of the Golden Years of Bush then.
MobiusKlein
Do they remember 2008?
The housing bust, the AIG and banks vaporizing in an afternoon, the meltdown of the financial sector?
All Obama’s fault, I’m sure.
demkat620
@MobiusKlein: I have a winger friend who will tell you with a straight face that companies are holding back on hiring in anticipation of the Obama tax increases.
Warren Terra
The R plan wasn’t just (permanent) tax cuts on the capital gains no-one has now; there were also permanent income-tax cuts, mostly on the wealthy, and killing the estate tax for good starting in 2011.
slag
@MobiusKlein:
No.
Warren Terra
Now that I’ve added more detail on the R plan, you can see that its stimulus effects would have been legendary. Among caviar sellers and yacht brokers. Starting in a few years.
Or are you a Social!st?
Makewi
Obama is the POTUS. He said he had a plan to fix the economic woes, and it hasn’t worked yet. Unemployment stands at 9.7%. The American people understand that this didn’t start when he was elected, but they also understand that he asked for the job to fix it.
If he doesn’t turn this around before 2011 he will NOT be re-elected.
It is my personal opinion that he needs to understand that the Congress he has is mostly worthless and if he wants to get something done, he is going to have to figure out a workable plan and hand it to them.
r€nato
@demkat620: that’s nothing. I read an awesome article by Paul Krugman just a day ago which stated that some economists of the neoclassical (Milton Friedman) school explain high unemployment as workers choosing to go on vacation.
(neoclassical economists apparently paint themselves into this philosophical corner when they insist that the market always, always, always prices things rationally and recessions are good/necessary things)
Makewi
Not before 2011, before 2012.
r€nato
@Makewi: he’s had about seven months, ya think maybe you could cut him some slack? 2011 is 18 months away.
r€nato
OK, 30 months away.
Makewi
@r€nato:
I can cut him all the slack you want. It’s the 217,000 people that lost their jobs in August that he needs to be worried about.
arguingwithsignposts
(since ppl are scattered amongst threads)
My venn diagram explains it all.
General Winfield Stuck
@Makewi:
your concern is touching, in a stating the obvious sort of way.
Quaker in a Basement
If he doesn’t turn this around before 2011 he will NOT be re-elected.
For some reason, that joke about “I don’t have to outrun the bear” comes to mind.
PaulB
I see … so you expected him to wave a magic wand and all would be well? For the record, of course, his plan is, in fact, working, as most economists acknowledge. What is happening now is precisely what most people expected to be happening. Too bad you won’t be able to bludgeon Obama in 2012, now that he’s on track to fix Bush’s many failures.
MobiusKlein
@Makewi:
It’s too bad that the Senators insisting on delaying and reducing the stimulus aren’t at risk of losing their jobs.
Especially those who stand to gain from Obama’s loss.
(and when they support WPA style employment boosts, let me know.)
Joshua Norton
Let’s see. According to the wingnut “just pull anything out of your ass, say it out loud and it’s instantly true” school of logic, I am an NFL quarterback. Well, you know, pending draft, contract, and learning how to throw a ball.
Colonel Danite
I’m just waiting for Glen Beck or one of the other nutters to cry that Obama is stealing their precious bodily fluids.
dmsilev
Hell, the wingnuts managed to blame Jimmy Carter for the bursting of the housing bubble. Compared to that bit of mental pretzel-twisting, this is almost rational.
-dms
Makewi
@PaulB:
What is happening now is precisely what most people expected to be happening.
What’s too bad is that it’s not what was predicted by Obama would be happening when he was pushing for the Stimulus. The one he let the worthless Congress write.
Here
Too bad you won’t be able to bludgeon Obama in 2012, now that he’s on track to fix Bush’s many failures.
Lol. You mean by continuing to do the exact same things. He’s on track to fail, which he is doing just fine at. The far left is pissed at him because he hasn’t met any of the promises regarding the war or terrorism and the far right is pissed at him because they think he is a socialist and everyone else is just wondering if their jobs will be next on the chopping block. Unless of course they are already unemployed.
I don’t have to bludgeon him. In fact, I hope he moves to a more moderate position quickly so that the first black POTUS doesn’t end up a one-termer.
Elie
It is really hard for me…
There is unbelievable amounts of stupid and crazy — the most vile and extreme statements made by the right wing crazies…
Unfortunately, while refuting and commenting on them, we also repeat them and therefore amplify..
I don’t have a solution. It is important to talk about it and expose the lies.
That said, we also spread the disease. Inadvertantly, to be sure, but spread just the same…
I find that staying away from blogging and definitely the teevee helps to bring peace and perspective but it is difficult to stay away from what is going on.
I also find that volunteer work and other activities helps…
We have to somehow get a way to fight this that doesnt propagate the same thing.
Dont know how, though. I don’t know how.
Elie
Makewi:
Shut up! — shoo — go away!
Jager
I’m working at home today, went out to get the mail and started talking with one of my nieghbors who is a mild wing-nut. After some chatter about our dogs, he started on politics, he ran the gamut: taxes, the schools, unions, the teachers union, “paying your own way” BS, and then the “illegals” (always a big topic here in SoCal) and of course the crime problem. I didn’t have the energy to engage him and just let him blow off steam. I walked away thinking to myself, why the hell does my nieghbor go through life filled with all that negative energy, fear and hate. He is only a mild level 1 winger and by the time he was finished he was red faced and sweaty! I walked about 10 feet and turned around and said, “Hey, Jim…I know you believe Reagan was a great American and the best President in the last hundred years, right?” He yelled back, “I do!” I then said, “If thats the case, why did he get all dressed up in his all American cowboy outfits and ride on a god-damned English saddle!” He damned near had a melt down in the middle of his driveway, I’ve never felt better about being called an asshole!
Scruffy McSnufflepuss
The collapse of the economy in September 2008 was Clinton’s fault. Obama’s compounding the problem, of course.
America’s only hope is that the delayed effects of Bush’s tax cuts will see us through the Clinton-Obama Depression. Just as Hoover pulled us out of the Great Depression, saving us, before FDR managed to muck it up with his Commie policies, so Bush’s tax cuts will belatedly save us from Obamanomics.
robertdsc
Fixed, hopefully.
He has to be more liberal to get this country back on track. That means ending the wars yesterday, bringing the troops home, cutting the defense budget, increasing taxes on the rich, stringent financial regulations, renegotiating NAFTA and other trade treaties to prevent job flight, a financial transactions tax, and a strong public option health plan without limits to cover the millions who don’t have insurance.
Instead, he’s failed at all of these.
Elie
Robert @ 30
“Instead, he’s failed at all of these.”
And after only 9 months — Failed!
Makewi
@Elie:
Perhaps if you had asked nicer.
MobiusKlein
@robertdsc: Sadly, it seem Obama can get more Moderate and more Liberal at the same time as it stands. So far, he’s a good Eisenhower Republican.
PaulB
ROFL…. Dear heart, any time you’d like to join us here in reality, you’re quite welcome. You see, out here in the real world, few people expected an instant fix. What we did expect is precisely what is occurring.
No, dear; I mean by doing quite a few things differently. You really should join us; it’s actually quite nice out here, when we don’t have a Republican administration messing up the place.
Not on the economy, dear. Sorry to disappoint you.
Considering that his positions thus far have been, in fact, moderate and centrist, forgive me if I don’t share your hope, particularly since those “moderate” positions espoused by the Republican Party would have been disastrous, both to the economy and the country.
But then, you already knew all of this and just wanted to play silly games.
robertdsc
It started with the wrong people that he selected for the econ team and the wrong SecTreas. And on from there. How did cramdown come out? Oh, yeah, it got defeated because the White House didn’t push for it. The war supplemental was a total clusterfuck, but the White House wanted it, so they got it and broke liberal arms to do it.
But see what you like. It’s not going to get any easier, especially after 2010 when we lose the majorities in Congress.
Elie
..I actually think sometimes that between robert @ 30 and Makewi, I would rather hear Makewi’s blather.
Robert, your comments are like the most depressing thing about this time… all negative but supposedly from our side.
Makewi
@PaulB:
So you didn’t actually click on the link to compare what was predicted by the administration if only we would pass the critical stimulus and, you know, the reality.
Things are fine, so long as you keep telling yourself that.
Makewi
@Elie:
My blather comes with shave ice. Ice cream is optional.
robertdsc
You think I like saying it? I don’t. I wish things were on the right track. But they aren’t. I’m not happy with it in any way. And yes, I voted for Obama. I donated and convinced people to vote for him. So it’s not that I’m some wingnut who’s getting his rocks off in taunting people. I’m simply seeing the reality of the situation.
Makewi
Oh Elie, don’t let it get you down. The world always seems like it’s ending. So far it never is.
Linkmeister
@arguingwithsignposts: You forgot the latest group: Tenthers. People who think the 10th amendment precludes Federal activity (including health care reform) of any sort.
Ailuridae
@robertdsc:
I really wish their were a permanence and accountability to blog commenting so that when people wrote things as dim as:
But see what you like. It’s not going to get any easier, especially after 2010 when we lose the majorities in Congress.
it would forever have to be affixed to everything they write. You do realize that the Democrats have to lose 11 seats currently held by Democrats in 2010 to lose their majority, right? Or alternately lost 10 and have Lieberman flip. In addition to that they have to lose every open race.
Democrats up for re-election in the Senate in 2010:
2.4.1 Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas
2.4.2 Barbara Boxer of California
2.4.3 Michael Bennet of Colorado
2.4.4 Christopher Dodd of Connecticut
2.4.5 Daniel Inouye of Hawaii
2.4.6 Evan Bayh of Indiana
2.4.7 Barbara Mikulski of Maryland
2.4.8 Harry Reid of Nevada
2.4.9 Kirsten Gillibrand of New York
2.4.10 Chuck Schumer of New York
2.4.11 Byron Dorgan of North Dakota
2.4.12 Ron Wyden of Oregon
2.4.13 Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania
2.4.14 Patrick Leahy of Vermont
2.4.15 Patty Murray of Washington
2.4.16 Russ Feingold of Wisconsin
Get back to me on who those ten or eleven losers are OK?
Also, there is even less of a chance that the house flips than the Senate.
Chad N Freude
@Makewi:
If this is true, then the good folks at RedState are not American people. We must conclude that either they are people who are not American, or they are Americans of a species other than People.
General Winfield Stuck
@Makewi:
You are a tiny coward. Nothing more.
Ailuridae
@Makewi:
You do realize that misdiagnosing the severity of the problem has little if anything to do with determining if the proposed solution is effective, right?
Before a single stimulus dollar was spent the guessed curve for unemployment was already increasing more rapidly than Roemer’s guess.
robertdsc
Ailuridae, with the way health care is melting down and becoming more and more corporate-friendly, I firmly believe we’re in for a blood bath in 2010. Mandating everyone buy shitty insurance and no public option, as the Senate and White House are clearly telegraphing means catastrophe.
If push comes to shove and we get no bill because the House won’t budge, and rightfully so, on a public option, it will be Chernobyl-style action in 2010.
As yet, I haven’t read a single scenario yet that says the health care debacle will end in any positive way. The White House has waffled and meandered so far from what Obama wanted from the campaign that they have given me no confidence or trust in any way.
That’s why I’m saying what I’m saying. Of course, if I’m wrong and this is one giant sucker play, then I’ll gladly take my lumps. Hell, I’ll donate to the re-election campaign in Tunch and Lily’s name. But I don’t think so.
Lola
@Ailuridae:
Thank you for a little reality check. I have no idea if Dems will lose some seats in 2010 and right now nobody does. Six months ago we could have said Dems would pick up a few more in the Senate. Six months from now who knows what we will be saying? It is too early.
But there is no way Dems will lose control of the Senate. It is simply inconceivable. In fact, Dems have a good chance to pick a few more seats and will be competitive. All this doom and gloom stuff is silly. We are all married to Obama and some people want to get a divorce at the first big fight. Silly. We will have plenty of good days ahead with Obama and our shitty Senate. Health care will pass, DADT will be repealed, the Bush tax cuts will expire, and some small steps will be made combating global warming.
By 2012, nearly all Democrats will be satisfied enough with Obama, repulsed enough by whichever loser the Republicans pick, and the cycle will continue.
Davis X. Machina
@ ailuridae Get back to me on who those ten or eleven losers are OK?
Not quite that many. But there will be losses: say Dodd, Reid, Lincoln, Bennett all lose. Age and health are becoming factors — an open seat in Hawaii appears and goes R, an open seat in WV, ditto, as Lieberman goes off the reservation….and Brick Oven Bob’s your uncle.
Bill Arnold
Makewi:
The early 1980’s recession (could call it the Reagan recession but won’t since it was mainly the Volker recession) had unemployment peaking at the end of (December) 1982. That’s equivalent to end of 2010 for Obama. I hope unemployment peaks well before then but who knows. (The early 1980s recession was a very different beast.) The Democrats will probably lose seats in 2010, as did the Republicans in 1982. Obama will very likely win in 2012 unless the Republicans can field an extremely convincing candidate. (Who? Seriously?)
srv
@Josh: Here’s something to cheer you up:
http://milpubblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/embattled-farmers.html
Ailuridae
@Davis X. Machina:
Nobody is arguing that there aren’t likely to be losses. I am arguing, correctly, that to posit that the Democrats will not only lose one, but both houses of Congress, is fucking stupid.
If you asked me for the most likely scenario for the Democrats in the Senate in ’10 I would guess 4-5 seat losses. You could lay me pretty good odds and I would take a bet that they lose 0 seats. There isn’t a set of odds however that I, or any right thinking person would say that they take a net loss of 10 Senate seats.
Also, if Romanoff runs Bennett won’t be on the ballot in the general.
Jay Levitt
And here’s the really amazing part: It’s only September 4.
The same clowns who talk about the Obama Deficit will say that Clinton was responsible for 9/11; Bush was still transitioning. Sure, we have many other examples of their special-pleading mentality, but this one’s pretty objective – either Nothing Counts Till October, or the Buck Stops Here.
Chad N Freude
@Bill Arnold: Comparisons like this one don’t take account of the difference between a very popular long-time actor with a patina of benevolent paternalism and a young, black, almost-unknown newish politician.
stickler
Obama is in some trouble, true, but shit people, we’re in the worst economic crisis since 1933, no joke. Of course people are scared and they blame the guy in the White House. Though they still remember the jackass who preceded him, don’t you worry.
But losing both houses of Congress? To whom? Remember the Republicans who are actually going to be running for office in 2010: wingnut crazy people who ran the country into the ditch in 2000-2008. Michelle Bachmann, for example.
The Democrats might lose a few seats here or there, because the country’s in the shitter and the President’s party always has a tough time in off-year elections. But come on, let’s be realistic here.
Linkmeister
@Davis X. Machina: Dan Inouye of Hawai’i is in very good health and has no credible challenger out here, so cross him off the potential loss list in 2010.
Linkmeister
@Linkmeister: Me, to me: The Republican party is virtually non-existent in this state; Inouye would be more at risk in a primary than he will be in a general election.
Ailuridae
@Bill Arnold:
For America and Obama there is some good news about when unemployment starts going down. Over at 538 (link at bottom) Nate has some pretty graphs today suggesting a late 4th quarter of 09 peak rather than an early Q1 of 10 peak. The worry is the “jobless recovery” more so than unemployment rising without bound.
In terms of the politics of it all I suspect the Democrats will stil maintain comfortable majorities between 10 and 12 and then there situation will likely be very similar from 12-14 as it is now (close to 60 senate seats, lots of Democrats from PVI R districts who get buoyed by Obama).
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/09/what-todays-unemployment-report-means.html
Wile E. Quixote
I’m sure that if we’d had the internet 70 years ago then in September of 1942 there would have been some clueless dildo like Makewi saying “Why hasn’t Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the war yet damnit! We’ve been fighting the Axis for ten months now.”
It’s interesting to me how ass-lickers like Makewi, because that’s what conservatives are, they’re pathetic, cringing, political (and usually sexual) submissives, judge Obama harshly because the economy hasn’t turned around yet but didn’t say a damned thing about the way the Iraq war dragged on under George W. Bush and a Republican Congress.
If we’re going to blame Obama for unemployment and destroying jobs can we blame George W. Bush for murdering American soldiers? Seems fair to me, especially when you consider that Bush appointed Donald Rumsfeld who is the most arrogantly incompetent fuckup to hold the office of Secretary of Defense since the late and unlamented Robert Strange McNamara. I mean not even Dick Cheney, Dick “I had five draft deferments, got busted for drunk driving twice, shot my friend while I was drunk on a hunting trip and I’m not BFF any more with GWB because he didn’t pardon Scooter Libby” was as much of a fuckup as Rumsfeld was when he was SecDef.
Chad N Freude
@Wile E. Quixote: You’re being unfair to makewi. His comments do contain facts, spun and skewed but nonetheless facts, and his grammar and punctuation are very good.
Chad N Freude
@Wile E. Quixote: I also disagree with your assessment of MacNamara. He was not incompetent, just arrogant, egotistical, and immoral.
stickler
Chad:
I also disagree with your assessment of MacNamara. He was not incompetent,…
Stop right there. Review the concept of the “body count.” Also, see: Vietnam War, Lost.
jaquestraw
Those jobs are gone so is the trillions spent in bailouts and so is the money depleted from peoples investment accounts.wake up they already have the new one world currency and the powers to be China Russia Obama all seem to be aboard with it .say goodbye to America’s soveriegn rights as free capitalistic society.
parksideq
@Makewi: Concern troll is concerned.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@jaquestraw: Black helicopters are so 1990s.
jaquestraw
I know maybe the green job czar can create 500 million jobs then everyone will be happy.
Rob Wolfe
@arguingwithsignposts: That perfectly sums things up!
Elie
JRobertscn
We should give you a McCain Presidency!
Boy, things would really be “Fixed” then now wouldnt they?
Oh, that’s right, who knows for sure?
Yeah —
I think that we are not in the sink hole economically that we were in January after Bush II — nor in the horror of our international situation.
We have not “fixed” everything in 9 months. There would be no way to do that. Obama does not rule by decree.
There is something wrong with your expectations and perceptions.
Are you expecting an unbelievable and unrealistic set of resolved issues. Not sure you know how the world actually works
DaBomb
@Elie: Makewi is an idiot and Robert is a complete drag and defeatist. Don’t let them get you down.
When I read the title to this post, I was laughing so hard that tears starting falling and I had trouble breathing. This is what the crazy has spawned, complete laughter.
Uloborus
I really am starting to agree that the trolls in this forum are almost entirely people trying to make us spell out the counterarguments against conservative talking points, but oh, well. Here I go again.
I have looked at that link you offered, Makewi. Of course, I’ve seen it before, but I looked at it again to see how it applies. It does, indeed, show that the Obama administration was wrong. Specifically, it shows that they underestimated how bad the recession would be. This is not surprising to anyone (predictions like that are always loose guesses) and is not remotely critical to any of Obama’s arguments or strategies. You could use it to make a Krugman ‘We need MORE stimulus’ argument, but it doesn’t at all mean that what Obama’s done isn’t working. Now, it really IS hard to tell if the stimulus helped any. That’s economics for you. But the signs are that the recession is slowing already, there was a real worry that it would death spiral instead (which hasn’t happened), and the money is spending and it’s employing people and everything is basically following the pattern that was predicted. Obama’s strategy has only failed in the sense that it didn’t immediately end the recession, and no one who knows even a little about the subject thought it would.
Oh, and the second graph is an obvious distortion designed to make the economy look like it’s nose-diving by manipulating the scale of the Y axis. I suggest you ignore it entirely. Its mere existence makes me worry that whoever created these graphs was interested in fudging the results wherever possible.
Davis
Jobs created under Clinton: 23 million (after a tax increase)
Jobs created under Bush: 3 million (after two tax cuts)
Wile E. Quixote
@Chad N Freude
Yes, and Hitler wasn’t such a bad guy either. It was those goddamned Polack üntermenschen that forced, forced the poor man to declare war on them in 1939.
jaquestraw
A conservative led Canadian government just posted a 27,000 job increase last month and a stabilizing unemployment rate of 8.7.not bad.I know apples and oranges.It must be their health care system.
Catsy
One can hope? Reid needs to lose his job. Preferably in the primary, but I’d accept the loss of his Senate seat if it meant getting a majority leader who remembers that he’s a vertebrate and can count to 51.