Me, at noon today:
My only question- which house blue dog will be the first to introduce a bill extend the Bush tax cuts to show their bipartisanship?
The Hill, less than four hours later:
Two House Democrats in tough reelection races are asking Congress and President Barack Obama to extend the Bush administration tax cuts.
Reps. Bobby Bright (D-Ala.) and Mike McMahon (D-N.Y.) asked members in a “Dear Colleague” letter Thursday to support extending the tax cuts, which passed in 2001 and 2003 and are set to expire this year, for at least another two years. Specifically, Bright and McMahon are asking lawmakers to sign a letter to Obama asking him to include the tax cuts in his budget plans for 2010.
When Democrats retreat, you better watch out or you will get run over. In the 2 1/12 years I have been a Democrat, the only thing they have excelled at is passing Republican legislation, infighting, and cutting and running. They ought to stop calling this the Democratic party, because I’m not having much fun.
Glocksman
I’m still waiting for one to cosponsor an impeachment resolution with Michele Bachmann.
Jon
I tried to post this in one of the other threads earlier today. I cannot accurately describe the amount of alcohol I am going to be imbibing this evening.
Joshua Norton
Whew! I was worried that repigs wouldn’t have anything to crow about this week. Add that Air America has closed down and they’ll need an indentured mop brigade to clean up after them.
Lev
Bright is a Republican in all but name. He should just get it over with and switch parties. The only reason he ran as a Dem was because it was a Dem year.
As for the rest of them–I think we need to remember the names of everyone who wavered on HCR, who panicked, and remove their worthless asses from the party through primaries if possible. Might be painful short-term, but it’s become clear that a substantial part of the Democratic Party is simply petrified dead weight.
mr. whipple
Jeebus. Shoot me.
Comrade Luke
I think this highlights something important, ie the “overwhelming majority” is just so much bullshit.
What’s happened is that the Republicans have executed a political ethnic cleansing, leaving real conservatives no other option than running as Democrats.
Instead of the Democrats using this to their advantage and making them play ball at the risk of losing money, support and ultimately their jobs, they’ve admitted them to the party, used them to inflate their majority in the eyes of the public…and let them continue to legislate as if they were Republicans.
No one could have predicted that would blow up in their faces, other than any sentient being with a pulse that was paying attention.
ETA: Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I’m not endorsing a Hamshercaust of the Democratic party, complete with purity oaths. I’m just suggesting that the Republicans-as-Democrats need to be removed from the equation as much as possible.
Frank Chow
I see you got my tweet.
Whimpering Dems like this deserve to lose.
erlking
I’ve been on this boat for 27 years now. Just think how I feel.
Joshua Norton
I was worried that conservatives wouldn’t have anything to crow about this week.
Brian J
I’ll let them keep the income tax cuts–if we can have increased taxes on stock transactions; carbon; gas and other fuel-based products; high priced medical plans, alcohol, tobacco, and similar things; and possibly investment and capital gains taxes. Hell, I’ll let them lower tax rates by a couple of more percentage points if they can find equal cuts in military spending. Whadddya say, guys?
On another note, we learn from Karl Rove that the fiscal mess in Washington is Obama’s fault, not that of the Bush administration. (These guys have some balls, don’t they?) He warns that Democrats are in for a world of trouble this fall, based on what we saw in Massachusetts. Does this mean that we are actually going to be a lot better than most think, since Bill Kristol/Dick Morris/Karl Rove is always wrong?
Jamie
It would be nice if the Dems looked like they were trying to win.
cleek
shorter Dems: if people hate how we’re acting as Democrats, we’d probably start acting like the party that got voted off the island just 12 months ago !
shitty centrist Dem or proven-failure GOP, those are the only choices we have!
beltane
If it’s any consolation, this is about the worst I’ve ever seen it and I’m a lifelong Democrat who was raised by lifelong Democrats. They’ve never sucked quite this badly before. I’m starting to feel like a coup just took place that we haven’t been told of.
General Winfield Stuck
Our leaders are reactionary clowns that believe there a secret forest of money trees we fund shit with till the end of time. Everything, EVERYTHING they do and think centers on one motherfucking thing, and that is how do I get myself reelected.
And now that the campaign cash spickets have been turned to rock and roll, the insanity will land us all in China’s giant safe where they keep all our money. Fuck health care, we are too stoopid as a people to have a great country, or soon, to have any country at all. You have to, at some point pay for what you buy. You can’t be the worlds policeman and keep a haughty standard of living on credit cards — you just can’t, and if we don’t either quit spending so damn much, or start asking our citizens to pay for it, because they are the only ones that can, we are pretty much destined for economic collapse and empty tin cups to live on.
I do blame the wingnuts for creating the demon that taxes are evil, while at the same time they want to bomb every brown person they can find, and at home shovel what cash there is to people who don’t need it. Race to the bottom, and today with the SCOTUS wingers shit, we have greased wheels on the Soap Box Derby Clown Car of Doom.
Neutron Flux
Fuck me running.
I am a patient kind of person, take the long view, blah blah blah.
I’m with Jon.
Gonna go to Pokerstars and put this shitty week behind me.
+3
Glocksman
@Comrade Luke:
Living in a socially conservative district myself, I’m willing to cut a vulnerable Democrat some slack on the issues.
As I’ve stated in other threads, if my own Blue Dog were to vote any other way than pro-life and pro-gun rights, he’d be out on his ass because of the nature of the area.
That said, I haven’t seen any demand locally even among the teabaggers for renewing the Bush tax cuts.
Unless their constituents are just begging for the Bush cuts, they’re assholes looking to grab some wingnut welfare next year.
60th Street
This makes perfect sense! Why, by extending the Bush tax cuts, ConservaDems will lock up the teabagger vote and ensure that wingnuts won’t primary them with birthers.
Frankly, it makes me smile like to see the Blue Dogs scared this shitless. Proof that they know they’re gonna be the first to go.
Comrade Luke
@General Winfield Stuck:
Wow. I feel like the guy sitting in the chair in the Memorex commerical. You’ve gone full-on shrill. Me likey.
Also, Soap Box Derby Clown Car of Doom really needs to be a tag.
Neutron Flux
Now I am in moderation.
Perfect.
nepat
Is Scott Brown Jesus or what?
Democrat – heal thyself!
danimal
Words fail me.
The Bush tax cuts destroyed the fiscal integrity of this nation for at least a generation. There is no reason for any Democrat to support them. None. Nada. Zilch.
The Raven
And this is why I’m an independent.
Well, we could join the American Pirate Party. Arrrrrrrr!
JMG
At this point, all we can do is wait for the GOP deluge to wash some of these walking pieces of refuse into the sewer system of unemployment — until they become lobbyists.
One reason I worked very hard (by my standards) for Obama was my belief he was the last shot this country had to avoid becoming something very unpleasant — like China, but without the economic growth.
Chance missed. He has eyes, good eyes, but cannot see.
Citizen_X
@Comrade Luke:
This.
And let me reiterate what I’ve said before: the Dems don’t have a “majority,” they’re more like a minority government in a parliamentary system. It’s as though the liberal party has had to form a coalition government with the center-right party.
Minority governments simply don’t get much done.
Oh, and a two-word answer to Bright and McMahon: deficits, bitches!
Tom Hilton
Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.
John O
With the Supreme Court decision that we don’t have enough organization money in politics (way worse than Brown) the death spiral is pretty much locked in.
Nobody can predict the future except John, and only then when it comes to simple things like predicting pussified Dem reaction, not exactly magic, but I say man the barricades is the only way to approach the next 5-15 years for now.
It was a good run.
Comrade Luke
@Glocksman:
I have zero problem with conservative Democrats. I have a problem with honest to god Republicans pretending to be Democrats so they can still have a job.
Mary Landrieu and Evan Bayh are perfect examples. They’re fucking Republicans, and yet they’re not only allowed to pull this shit, they’re the ones in front of the cameras.
Stroszek
So they’re not even going to wait until they actually get in charge to drop any pretense of interest in fiscal responsibility?
danimal
@The Raven: How do we start the Hookers and Blow Party?
Nevermind, we can already register as Republicans.
jg
What tax cuts are to be extended? Is anyone listing this anywhere?
Rick Taylor
And it looks like the DFH’s were right about Geitner. Reuters via Andrew Leonard via Atrios
__
Joel
Nate Silver again.
Time for our congress to suck it up and play ball. What a bunch of sallies.
eastriver
Man, when you put it like that, JC, you should maybe think of switching sides again.
Sorry, dude. You came for the ideas, but stayed for the ass-holery.
The Grand Panjandrum
Po widdle Blue Dogs now want something from the Democrats. Lets check how these fuckers voted on the House HCR bill … oh my, what do we have here? Gosh maybe they could have planned ahead and thought about how important it might be to vote with your fucking party on its most important social program in almost 50 years. These are some tedious motherfuckers. We already have a party that thinks tax cuts are the way to permanent prosperity and it doesn’t have a D in it.
If the Democrats are smart (very big if, I realize) they will extend, or make permanent the cuts for everyone making under $250K and allow taxes for higher bracket to expire. The best solution is to move everyone making over 250K to the next higher bracket then allow the highest bracket (over $372K) to return to Clinton era 39%.
HumboldtBlue
I am of a similar opinion, in that the people we now call Democrats we called Republicans in 1980.
mlas
Anyone have any reason why we shouldn’t just say screw the parties start a massive “vote out every incumbent” movement? I have had it. I’m an independent, and after today I feel like there’s not a single member of my federal government I can get behind.
freelancer
@eastriver:
heh. where do you defect to now?
jwb
@General Winfield Stuck: I wonder if some country will come take our nuclear weapons before we descend into crazy.
pattonbt
My first comment got lost, so more briefly……
For some reason, this hurts so much more than all the shenanigans of the last year (even considering these last couple of weeks). I know being a Dem is like herding cats and I know I will never pull the lever for a Republican, but damn! If this is what the Democratic party is going to give us, then I really believe the US may be unsalvagable.
I mean this voodoo ecomonic supply side crap is so easily disprovable and plainly destructive that even Satan could run against it and win. Yet the Democrats can’t help themselves.
Welcome to becoming Italy, US. First world country with second world amenities and third world political circus. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, we have lots of nukes.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Rick Taylor: Yep. And if you saw Obama’s announcement today, both Geithner and Summers were missing from the picture. Volcker and Biden were standing right behind the president. Every picture tells a story.
eemom
I luvs me that Booman:
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2010/1/21/13539/5451
Glocksman
@Rick Taylor:
A cabinet member expressing disagreement with the President in private is one thing.
Disagreeing with him in public is something else.
Obama should tell Geithner to have his resignation letter on the Oval Office desk by the end of next week.
But of course he won’t.
Comrade Luke
Wow, I stopped reading Nate Silver because I thought he’d become a smug apologist for everything Obama, but it sounds like he’s even reached his breaking point.
General Winfield Stuck
@Comrade Luke: Not renewing Bush’s tax cuts is a biggy for me. I will likely reach outer space with shrillness with it, when the time comes. To me it is a seminal moment for common sense and fiscal survival.
Folderol and Ephemera
No it wasn’t.
Llelldorin
@Citizen_X:
This. I really think we might do better to split the party at this point.
Many other countries have two parties in the Democrats’ political space. Canada has the Grits and the NDP; the UK has Labor and the Lib Dems, and so forth. If we simply and forthrightly split the party, we could actually have it out between center-left and centrist governance. As it is, we’re like a bunch of Nac Mac Feegles pretending to be a human.
General Winfield Stuck
@Llelldorin: They have Parliamentary Systems of Government. More than 2 parties won’t work with our Constitutional Republic.
WereBear
Let me get this straight. I cannot donate unlimited amounts of money to a political campaign, because I’m a person, but corporations can, because they are, obviously, a better person.
Sigh.
Llelldorin
@General Winfield Stuck:
They have first past the post elections, though, just as we do.
Llelldorin
@WereBear:
Not at all. It’s typical conservative logic: you have just as much right as a major corporation to mount your own ad campaign for or against a candidate.
meander
How much do you want to bet the two Reps have used the word “deficit hawk” to describe themselves? Or have opposed things like the stimulus bill or HCR because of concerns about the deficit?
El Cid
@WereBear: You see, you have a mouth, therefore you can scream, but since they have no mouth, they must scream — with money!
jcricket
@Folderol and Ephemera: Yeah. That’s the last time I get all hopey and changey.
We make fun of the French for running chronic deficits to support their welfare state. But their unemployment is now lower than ours and their deficits are too (b/c they didn’t have to ratchet up the gov’t spending to provide services, since that was there all along).
Our fellow citizens can’t even grok the connection between taxes, gov’t revenue and services. And then when something the gov’t does fails, they further blame the gov’t/liberals and double-down on the cut-the-taxes attitude.
We’re doomed.
General Winfield Stuck
@Llelldorin: They elect parties by and large, we elect candidates. It has been tried here off and on since the beginning, won’t work with our form of government, and I suspect that was what the founders intended, more stable what we have. And I think we needed that with the south and north being what they are, often on different planets of ideology.
El Cid
@meander: We gotta stop da spendin’! And give the military all it needs, and finish these wars! We gotta cut all the taxes! And we gotta cut the gubmit debt! We owe to much money to China! And we don’t need to raise taxes, we can sell bonds to pay for stuff! Logick!
WereBear
@El Cid: Thanks for putting a smile on my face with the Harlan Ellison reference. I needed that.
Llelldorin
@General Winfield Stuck:
Even granting what you say, there’s no reason that the Republicans necessarily must be one of the surviving parties in every state, is there?
Dennis-SGMM
I’ve voted Democratic for 41 years come hell or high water or Mike Dukakis. Despite their many flaws I held on to the belief that Democratic principles would eventually lead them to do the right thing for the country. I don’t believe that any more. It doesn’t matter to me whether they’ve lost their nerve, sold out, or just gone stupid: they have failed the country when it most needed them.
Sometimes it’s good to be old. I don’t want to see how far down hill the one-party-two-party-system can go.
cat48
Ok, this makes me angry. What don’t they understand about how the deficit got to over $l.4T. We have to pay the damn bills if they want to “fight all them terrorists”. I’m not taking a cut in entitlements in my old age so these fools can have a tax break. They were warned. Did anyone actually listen to BO’s speeches during the campaign or read the website?????
GAHHHHH
Stroszek
@Comrade Luke: Has anyone not reached their breaking point? Ezra f’n Klein is basically calling for the party to dissolve, Josh Marshall has warped into a wrist-slitting progressive Andy Sullivan and Booman is recoiling in shame. The only person who hasn’t turned is that blackwaterdog dude from GOS and I’m pretty sure he’s just a php script set up by Robert Gibbs.
jenniebee
Just be thankful you’ve only had to deal with this for 2 1/2 years. This has been the story of my political awareness for the last quarter century, and it doesn’t get any better with time.
If you’re wondering why some progressives are gnashing their teeth at the O-man these days, well, dude, this was supposed to be our time. A black prez, you’d have thought that would mean that the race-baiters would be a little cowed, but no – Obama had to apologize to the police and the country for daring to suggest that arresting an elderly man in his own house on the charge of backtalking was not exactly putting the shine on that Beacon of Liberty, because the elderly man in question was also black. Black folks better tread lightly now that we’ve got a president of color, because if a white president does something that extends the level playing field to African-Americans, that’s a president that’s strong on civil rights; if a black president does it, he’s only representing black America which is a “special” interest because only whites count as “regular” Americans.
It was supposed to be our time. A filibuster proof majority in the Senate hadn’t occurred in my lifetime, or in my father’s lifetime. it’s an event like Haley’s comet, or the Red Sox winning the series. It’s the ultimate mandate, an absolute juggernaut of democratic power. 60 votes in the Senate represents as much as 90% of the American people (of course, it’s also possible to put together a 3/5 majority that represents as little as a quarter of the population – the 10 most populous states in the nation contain more than half the people, the 20 most populous are within a point of 75%). This 3/5 majority represented roughly 75% of the country. By all rights, we should have been able to sieze the opportunity to do something. But we couldn’t even get a decent emergency stimulus bill – our own party castrated the poor thing and didn’t feel that it was necessary to offer any better rationale than that they didn’t want to do anything that liberals thought was a good idea. Ditto with health care reform.
So here it is, a quarter of a century after Reagan, having made excuses for years for why this party of sound, practical ideas, that was focused on the bread and butter of governing well and for the public, couldn’t ever seem to actually get those ideas put in place, and while I’m sure that to a latecomer Jane Hamsher’s attempts at an intervention look like the hysterical lashings of an addled mind. But me, I sympathize with her. We’ve supported this party all the way up to 60 senators (and been clucked at for things like supporting Ned Lamont instead of that nice centrist who’s so good at reaching across the aisle) and all we got for it was the lousy shirt off our backs. There is nothing Jane can possibly do that could do more damage to the party or its policy objectives than the Democratic leadership does routinely itself. Party on, Jane!
Neutron Flux
OT, cause we need it.
I am still going to go play poker, but I wanted to ask a question before I left.
I am listening to the Band, The Weight.
WTF is that all about? Is there a message there? I don’t get it.
Demo Woman
If the Democratic Party was smart they would go outside of the capital building and raise their hands to the sky. When some one asked what they were doing, they might mention that they were looking for all that money that was suppose to trickle down to help average Americans. Isn’t that what Bush promised.
Keep the Middle Class tax cuts, in fact increase the middle class tax cuts and let the rest expire.
In the words of the great blog master..
Fuckity Fuck Fuck
danimal
@Llelldorin: I’ve thought that third parties and party splits are not practical, but I’m warming to the idea. I think it would have to be in conjunction with an alternative voting system such as instant runoff.
b-psycho
@mlas:
How about a “screw expecting people that don’t know you to represent your interests by proxy” movement?
General Winfield Stuck
@Llelldorin: Well no, parties have changed names and such, but in this country there exists basically two camps on world view and about everything else. Sometimes parties have split for a while during periods of internal strife, but they have always come back together for common cause of beating the other party and regaining power. I think we would have to suffer a societal wide meltdown for multiple parties, and if that happened each would likely have their own military wing. It would not be a fun place to live.
Brick Oven Bill
Does Glenn Beck read Balloon Juice?!?!?!
Today he psychoanalyzed Barack’s childhood abandonment and equated the national debt to aircraft carriers!
This is also very sad about Air America.
But some good news is that Glenn has come up with his very first documentary, which will air tomorrow at 5pm Eastern Standard Time.
Hey Glenn, if you want an expert on energy independence through oil shale, look me up. This is very doable and can save America while making us some solid cash. We can donate 10% of the proceeds to that hospital you admire so much.
John O
@El Cid:
Thanks for the laugh, EC.
I’m in what I perceive to be a small minority ’cause I think Obama is right politically, if he plays it slickly, to give this to Congress at this moment because Congress looks like an ass and the POTUS looks like Daddy, if the President is smart enough to come out swinging on all kinds of things from now on. (Really. What gun hasn’t the GOP fired?). The teabaggers will collectively look like even bigger morons than they are by getting behind Big Bank, among some slice of the population.
He’s our first media-savvy POTUS, and I sense he understands the pace of change in reality vs. the pace of change on TV.
John O, +3, and now going to try to microwave my own head for being such an idiot.
El Cid
I think the Democrats ought to propose a bill to eliminate all taxes.
I don’t mean, replace them with the bullshit ‘fair’ tax.
Just eliminate them. No more taxes. None.
Then, promise to ‘get gubmit outta our lives’ by shuttin’ it down.
Make the military run on donations. You want forest fire monitoring? Pass a cookie jar.
Drug companies want universities so there can be basic research so that they can produce more dick hardening drugs? They can pay for them.
TEABAGGIN’ IT!
beltane
@Stroszek: blackwaterdog just posted a diary saying this has been the worst day of his life. Don’t look to him for a pep talk.
nodakfarmboy
@Comrade Luke: Reminds me of the Super Karate Monkey Death Car.
Llelldorin
@General Winfield Stuck:
I don’t necessarily think it’d be that bad. The entire source of the problem with modern politics is that the Republicans have been behaving more like a parliamentary party and less like a traditional American one. We’ve also gotten used to some of the key concepts over the last 10 years–we’re used to thinking about the Democratic “caucus” now, for example.
The key problem with party splits would be the Presidential contests. I wonder if we could work out some deal whereby the Democratic Caucus would field a single candidate, while leaving subparties free to campaign in Congressional elections?
freelancer
@El Cid:
Dude, we are at the point where that would not be just a rhetorical legislative move. Something proposed like that would pass.
b-psycho
@Brick Oven Bill: It seems like most of your blog is dedicated to (other than food) bitching about temporary bans from here. Do you really have that little to say?
John O
@El Cid:
Right! It’s a logical fallacy to take an argument to an extreme in real life, but it works politically, just like fear.
Give them rope. Goddess, this isn’t physics.
debbie
Did I misunderstand the ruling? I thought they said corporations could run ads, but still not contribute to a campaign.
I can’t seem to find any kind of reaction from John McCain on the overturning of McCain-Feingold. Guess he’s really sticking to his principles now…
El Cid
@freelancer: You’re right. Along with eliminating all taxes of any kind, we should probably also propose defining all Americans as preliminarily considered guilty of being an enemy combatant and therefore open to torture should it be needed.
TR
What’s their rationale for supporting the extension? Do they look back on the 2000s as some era of big economic growth?
Brick Oven Bill
I gave up that blog last spring b-psycho. Now I operate in other arenas. If you are bored, August 2008 was pretty good.
John O
@freelancer:
Some people like to swallow their medicine in one shot, and some like to choke it down in small more palatable doses.
freelancer
@El Cid:
You’ve never been to Maricopa County, have you?
jenniebee
@General Winfield Stuck: It’s possible to argue that our natural equilibrium point isn’t even at two major parties, but instead at one. I can’t think of a time in our political history since Andrew Jackson when we had two parties in more or less equilibrium for more than a couple of election cycles together. Democrats dominated until the Civil War, Republicans ran practically a one-party state from Lincoln through Hoover, FDR put the Democrats back in until Nixon, and since then Republicans have been the default position. It’s not completely surprising that there are so many blue dogs who act like they’d be relieved to return the the normalcy of a minority status. The first thing we have to change is Change itself.
Napoleon
@jenniebee:
Can I kiss you for that?
arguingwithsignposts
@danimal:
Actually, I think that’s going to be a new show on Fox News, sort of like Hannity & Colmes.
Wait, come to think of it, that would be a perfect follow for TDS/TCS. Get me Jon Stewart on the phone. I’ve got a pitch!
On the subject of John’s post, it doesn’t surprise me one bit. Was it Franklin who said democracy will only survive as long as people don’t figure out they can vote themselves some largesse?
OTOH, the GOP (a la Karl “alleged felon” Rove) have perfected the art of cognitive dissonance. They can lie and believe it’s the truth. Has this thread been Godwinned yet? Because they are fucking Nazis.
El Cid
@freelancer: Good point. Sheriff Arpaio should be proposed as the Attorney General In Chief, who is superior to the Attorney General and any other law enforcement official.
Sly
Who knew that Staten Island, NY and Montgomery, AL were entirely peopled with millionaires.
Comrade Dread
We should at least follow the Roman example and start excising taxes on our client states. It’s past time for them to start supporting the legions keeping them safe from the barbarian hordes.
Join the Libertarian party. Of course, their in-fighting makes the Democratic party look like peace loving DFHs.
Let’s just call it a day now on our government. I mean, we had a pretty good run, right? Time to just call it quits and go off on a drinking binge for a century or two, like Spain and England did before us.
BARRASSO
If the Republicans had this large a majority everyone darker than George Hamilton would have had tracking chips installed in their skulls by now.
El Cid
@Comrade Dread: Spain & England stopped their drinking binge?
Tax Analyst
@ #7 erlking:
I’ve been on this boat for 27 years now. Just think how I feel.
Brian J
@Glocksman:
Perhaps he will announce something like this at the state of the union.
John O
@El Cid:
Right! Make them question your judgment, turn their own ideas against them (tax cuts!) and pound them with their own quotes.
No, I don’t think the Arpaio idea is realistic, but it wouldn’t be hard to move in that direction and make the GOP sweat some of the stuff they claim to support. I think proposing grand tax cuts for rich people would at this moment be good politics and watching the GOP vote for it or abandon it would be great fun in the hands of a clever and vicious politician.
General Winfield Stuck
@jenniebee:
If I understand you accurately, I would disagree. I think there is a broad split in about all thing of governance, values etc…
There have been times when the parties were pretty close to one another and largely functioned as one with some differences around the edges. Usually that was due to calamities bringing about a sense of common cause, say like world war and civil war to a degree, in the aftermath. Also Cold War, and Great depression among others.
I just see the default ideological situation in this country as vastly two different ones, with for sure a lot of overlap and internal disagreement, but broad world view within these two groups largely in sync. But vastly different between the two groups.
As to my evidence of this would be the fact that no more than two parties have lasted long from being unviable for getting elected, and it has been tried. I think it also has to do with prosperity and wealth overall creating stability and warding off splinter parties.
Laura W
@Folderol and Ephemera: Um…can you email me (link from my site). I need to yak with you about Tunch’s Posse graphic.
Mr Furious
@Brick Oven Bill:
There are experts on energy independence, and there are experts on oil shale, but there are none that are both—because in the real world, they’re not compatible.
And if BoB claims to be one, then you know it’s folly.
Lisa K.
Just wait until you have been one for 30 years. This is actually a bright spot.
b-psycho
@BARRASSO: Wouldn’t that include Boehner?
cat48
@jenniebee I feel your pain w/the Dem party, but I’m angry w/the Congress–not Obama. He’s not responsible for these blue dogs wanting more tax cuts for the rich.
After listening to him today, he sounds angry a little. I certainly wouldn’t be asking him for anything if I had just screwed him w/health care.
BTW Hamsher and Norquist? Really? No, thanks. I’m not crazy or insane. Those are the last folks I’ll be teaming up with.
El Cid
Democrats could also propose that talking about global warming would be illegal, and replaced with Creation Museum facks.
Cain
I don’t know if anybody read this but Ezra nails it. Those who are criticizing Obama for his inactivity in the health care debate, Ezra speaks truth to power to it. Best explanation on what Obama is doing wrong and I say that as an Obot. More like this please.
cain
b-psycho
@Brick Oven Bill: Do you have a brother named Pete that builds barbecue pits?
Chuck Butcher
shit, today this place sounds like a bunch of leftists, hurry up and blame them for something or you are lost, lost and gone.
Julia Grey
Does this mean that we are actually going to be a lot better than most think, since Bill Kristol/Dick Morris/Karl Rove is always wrong?
Finally, a ray of hope.
Did I misunderstand the ruling? I thought they said corporations could run ads, but still not contribute to a campaign.
You’re making a funny, right?
Do you see a material difference between running ads supporting a candidate and giving money to a candidate’s campaign so they can run ads?
General Winfield Stuck
@Chuck Butcher: Nursing resentments over perceived slights to fuzzy opaque political labels is a fools game. And I have never took you for a fool.
Brick Oven Bill
Balloon Juice challenges have been helpful in my efforts. Someone once argued that more energy is consumed in heating the shale than is extracted from it, leading me to refine the energy input number, which I found to be theoretically $0.17/cubic foot (0.2 BTU/lbm heat capacity; 150 lbm/ft^3; 100,000 BTU/dollar), probably closer to a quarter in the real world.
Thus I can make 400 years of domestic gasoline for $1.08 a gallon (hi Glenn).
I don’t have a brother who makes barbeque pits b-pyscho, but I know somebody’s mother who makes good pancakes.
cat48
@Glockman Who would confirm the new Treasury Sect.??? Not this friggin congress. Johnsen has been waiting 1 damn year. So, Geithner will stay for a while.
Tsulagi
Don’t forget the sternly worded letters and resolutions! Look forward to the Senate welcoming their newest member from MA with a sternly worded resolution condemning Coakley for running against Brown. Unanimous consent, no doubt. Bipartisanship.
Kryptik
Is there any goddamned Democrat in Washington who’s not curling up in a goddamned fetal position and simply echoing the goddamn Republicans every single step?
I know I’ve been cursing a lot, lot more than usual these few days, but good goddamn fucking shit….
El Cid
@Tsulagi: Actually, that’s a good suggestion.
Democrats should propose a Congressional resolution declaring the Republican Party to be the political party of good, patriotic real Americans, and the Democratic Party will henceforth be known as the dangerous party of seditious and lazy elites.
I bet you’d be able to get at least 20 Democratic Senators to co-sponsor.
Midnight Marauder
@Tax Analyst:
Sounds like the female equivalent of blue balls, if you ask me.
+2
WereBear
I think they’ve been cruising along for quite a while, unwilling, unable, and unabashedly doing nothing, because they were not actively wrecking something like the Republicans, so they thought that made them look good.
Elie
I have no proof but the Democratic Party, such as it was, disappeared after two of its heros and driving visionaries were assassinated months apart in 1968. Since then, I swear, every Democrat knows that if they truly stand up for the weak and oppressed and take that on, they can end up dead. And no one will catch who actually was responsible — in the case of Bobby, some lunatic known by no one and MLK, some unknown white dude. Magically, coincidentally, neither could be linked to any conspiracy.
After that, every liberal running for office who dreamed of taking up the banner of true liberalism and helping the people would know what could happen. I think that a whole bunch of people left public service then and were replaced with a whole other bunch — THIS bunch who could care less about the people — are really Republicans in many ways…
While I am very angry however, and very disgusted with Obama as well, I can’t think that he is enjoying being hoisted by his patard in this way. I hope he has a taste for some payback, cause I can think of a few who deserve it to the nth detail.
Where do we go with the dreams for our people? I have no faith in the Hamsherites who blew up much needed help for some reason that cannot really have anything to do with really caring. I dont think I can trust any Democrat anymore but am unsure what to do with that horrible feeling — both the anger and the complete despair — the wretchedness of now seeing what is ahead and just wanting to alternately vomit and run away….
I am a fighter though, and I know I will get back in the saddle — especially locally where things here are as bad as nationally.
On a note of marvel, saw five beautiful snowy white trumpeter swans honking, flying low over the trees, landing in one of our local little lakes. Such wonder has to be my balm these days cause my heart is just so sore — so sore.
Kryptik
@El Cid:
Nah, it’d never pass. Republicans would rejected wholesale, for daring to not include ‘Touched By God’ on the Republican side, and ‘Communist Hippie Anti-Christs’ on the Dem side.
And then once those are added, they’d reject it again and instead propose legislation to have the Democratic Party fully dissolved.
That, I imagine, would get at least 10 Dem co-sponsers.
mcd410x
@jenniebee: Exactly.
Rick Taylor
We’ve already established that you can threaten to kill the party’s signature legislation backed by the leadership and the President through a procedural maneuver, and you will receive no penalty whatsoever, and in Ben Nelson’s case the President may even go out of his way to say what great guy you are. So why shouldn’t representatives from conservative districts score cheap political points like this, since we all know there will be no consequences.
b-psycho
@Brick Oven Bill:
LOL, guess I should’ve saw that one coming…
kay
@Elie:
I’m waiting a bit to see the full flowering of the horror before I draw conclusions.
Elie, these two think they have leverage, and maybe they do. They think there is someone, somewhere, who cares whether they keep these seats. Maybe there is. I can’t imagine who it might be, other than themselves, but I guess we’ll find out.
I would not be surprised if they garner the necessary support for this horrible idea. How many do they need, anyway? They’ll have every Republican.
It would fly through the Senate. “Tax cut extension! Yeah!”
Elie
@Chuck Butcher:
Chuck, I know you have your leftie victim ax to grind, but right through here I would try to respect that feelings are pretty complex right now and the lefties are not clean, by any means but its a deep argument that I am probably not willing to take up with you right this minute in full splendor, nor do I have true positive alternatives to offer in response rather than just mirroring your negatism. Who needs that right now? Unless you are celebrating this (and if you are, you do have a problem way deeper than attitude)
Be a nice guy for just ten minutes. See how that feels, ok?
Humanities Grad
Just got a phone call from a Democratic Party fundrasier (great timing). Was hoping to get me to register as a monthly donor.
I told her that when a party that still has near-historical majorities in both the House and Senate decided to get serious about leading, I’ll get serious about giving them money. Got a bit cranky.
Now, after a few minutes to cool off, I’m feeling guilty about it. It’s not this poor woman’s fault that she’s got a job to do at the worst possible time, and the earful I gave her wasn’t really meant for her, but rather for the party leadership. But LORD do these people have an absolutely awful sense of timing.
Ruckus
@Folderol and Ephemera:
No, it was a good run. It just ended a while ago and all we’ve been doing is wiping up the drool on the dying patient, as well as a lot of very expensive treatments that extend living but not the quality of that life.
Tax Analyst
@ #109 Midnight Marauder:
Hadn’t thought of it that way before, but yeah, pretty much. Of course, I’m not +2.
Damn, sometimes I really miss drinking.
General Winfield Stuck
@mcd410x: Where are the starbusts? I want my Unicorn that was promised. Criticism of Obama is warranted right now, at least for style, but why do people think the country went spaz over the elderly black man getting arrested for nothing in his own home, and Obama pilloried in the press and by wingers for simply criticizing it (not to mention polls validating that pillorying), as most Americans if it had been white on white would have agreed with him. Obama is in a delicate dance with the unfinished business of race relations in this country, and white fear. That said, I agree he needs to step it up some and take more charge. But he can never, or at least now, take charge like a Johnson, or Reagan, or Bush, not yet.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
Christ, this whole thread needs a Xanax.
This is what we get for being the ‘daddy’ party in an instant gratification nation. It was never going to be easy.
J. Michael Neal
Even I’m fed up with the passivity of the administration at this point. I still disagree with a bunch of you about the desirability of just passing the Senate bill, but that’s where all of this has gotten us: *everyone’s* pissed at *all* of the Democrats in Washington. They’re taking an approach that manages to please exactly no one. I don’t get it. So, I’m going to repeat a request I made in another thread that appears to be dead.
DougJ has provided good information on how to contact and register our opinion with our Congressmen. Can someone tell me how to do the same with the White House? I want to register my disgust with them, too. Frankly, I need to find a polite way to question their manhood, both collectively and individually, to really make my feelings known. I sent an e-mail yesterday, but that probably doesn’t have any value. I donated a hell of a lot of money to Obama over the course of 2008, so maybe my opinion even counts for something.
mcd410x
@Elie: YES
Elie
@kay:
kay, it is really hard to look at it. I have not had teevee news or looked at a true newspaper or news website in two days…
Locally, my husband ran as a Planning Commissioner and our local County Council that just swung right in November, inserted two candidates last minute and Alan lost by one vote. The new Council leadership screwed all 31 of the applicants who submitted their applications for appointment by the due date in November. One of the last minute selections ended up getting a slot, along with three others of the correct ideological purity.
We have successfully forced a “do-over” process and one of our local papers hammered this and did a detailed analysis that has brought this out quite nicely..(we actually still have investigative journalism here in Whatcom County WA).
Anyway, this battle is important as the Planning Commission oversees land use and award of development privileges. We have a fragile ecosystem that is hanging on by its fingernails and hundreds if not thousand of vacant, unused housing units from the last bubble — do not need to build more. While I am not anti development, the development assholes here have bought this County Council and could care less whether our beautiful blue water has a single living creature in it. We have to fight this and it will take a lot of our enery to do so… This fight mirrors what is happening nationally, to my mind
Dennis-SGMM
@Elie:
Do you know who Chuck is? Do you know anything about the work that he did for the Democratic party?
I do. Describing him as a “lefty victim” is absolutely baseless and betrays an ignorance deeper than the Marianas Trench. He’s one of the people who was actually out there working for the Democratic party, doing all of the thankless, tedious, things that many blog commenters have yet to do.
Instead of advising him, why don’t you advise yourself to take a cold, hard, look at where the Democratic party stands right now? Ask yourself what our Democratic pols care enough about to even sacrifice re-election to do the right thing for the country.
So, here’s an piece of advice from someone who’s voted straight Democratic since 1968: go fuck yourself.
Elie
@Dennis-SGMM:
Maybe I should have asked you for permission to address Chuck. Are you his chamber pot keeper?
There is no royalty here. We stand on our own comments, point of view and values. No, I did not know that he was Lord muckety muck. Who cares and what does that have to do with anything?
Chuck can speak for himself and I take the right to ask for a person to lay off criticism for once when I find it insensitive and not necessarily helpful to the moment. I do not have to ask for permission to criticize whoever comments here.
Since I used no swear words at him and did not address you, why are you even in this conversation? Mind your own business!
maus
@Comrade Dread:
They’ve been taken over by the teabaggers who have been taken over by the GOP. The little-ls have no place, and while Ron Paul is a good guy compared to the rest of the Republicans, he’s not really someone I could support.
J. Michael Neal
@maus:
I’m trying to decide if the bar set by the rest of the Republicans is really set that low. I’m not sure that that’s really the case. Paul may be against the wars, but he’s a real fucking loon.
mcd410x
@General Winfield Stuck: I’m from Memphis — where MLK was assassinated. I hope you can’t imagine the negativity and defeatism that hangs over the city: It’s like being a life-long Democrat.
In any instance, that’s the part of Jenniebee’s post I identify with least because I’ll never be able to walk in Obama’s shoes, but like any other Democrat he’s going to be attacked no matter what he does: black, white or red.
But if he doesn’t stand up and lead this rag-tag group, who is?
Kobie
The sky-is-falling rhetoric around here today is disappointing. This is not the end of the world.
Svensker
I called yesterday and apparently a lot of people were doing the same thing because I was on hold a long time. Finally got a nice lady who did not sound at all surprised about my angry tirade.
WH # is 202-456-1111
Svensker
@Elie:
Where are you? I grew up in Bellingham and Birch Bay, still have family in Lynden (dittoheads, unfortunately).
The Republic of Stupidity
@Sly:
Or at the very least, people who imagine themselves to be millionaires…
J. Michael Neal
@Svensker: Thanks. They’re going to hear from me tomorrow.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
I thinking that I ought to get out in front of this SCOTUS ruling, contact various corporations and tell them that my vote is for sale. If they pay me and want something I will be glad to vote for it. Eliminate the risky politician as the sole recipient of corporate largesse and go for the direct sale. This could be a new version of a ‘Full Employment Act’ where everyone just directly sells their vote to various corporations and supplements or earns their living that way.
If politicians can sell their votes then why can’t we?
Elie
@jenniebee:
jennie
I can certainly agree with most of what you say — and won’t refute your opinion on Jane right now… who could when her criticisms seem so right on..
I do question some of the brinkmanship around blowing up not only reform for the general pop, but knowing that if it blows up, millions of folks and folks with severe illness and death — will be impacted. Can you completely negate that result and not just pause a minute?
As a nurse, I have had the horror of making mistakes or of witnessing mistakes. I have also observed unintended bad outcomes that just ruin people’s lives forever. Knowing that, seeing that, feeling that — it is not a trivial thing to deprive millions of something that I hoped that we could give them as imperfect as it was.
As a nursing student, I spent some time in Missouri with some down home real poverty down and out people. I cannot tell you how I wanted for that image and experience to be mitigated with some comfort that these who I watched through the horror of their deprivation, could get some freakin help at last! To have some one blow that up as a political strategy to get where? Well I have a damned hard time with that — a damned hard time. And believe me, you cannot know the torrent of rage that I feel for the Democrats in the legislature right now.. you just cannot know and would not want you to know..
But I hear your heart and know what you mean and intend and so do not hold anything against you — or even the naivete that would have people sacrifice others on the throne of some political calculation. I just cannot talk about it or think about it like that…like its ok and worth that sacrifice
mcd410x
The world of the Kennedys, the one I grew up in the remnants of, was one of hope.
The world that emerged, the one of Reagan, was “fuck you, I got mine.”
Or as Vonnegut said: Ting-a-ling, you son of a bitch.
So be it.
liberty60
@Comrade Luke:
Agreed- We laughed at the ErickEricksons when they Scozzafavaed their party, but how many Repubs are wavering?
There is another side to running true Dems in red districts.
Blue Dogs exist because they are afraid of a challenge from the right, in a red-leaning district.
There are no Republican Red Dogs. This is because they do not fear a challenge from the left.
Running a hard challenger in a red district, even if he loses, threatens and makes vulnerable the Republican.
As the Republicans have shown, even if you only capture 41 seats, you can have a working majority.
Elie
@Svensker:
I’m in Birch Bay — overlooking the beautiful Bay where Lord George Vancouver and his convoy of little ships holed up to avoid storms way back in the 17th century
Where are you?
(BTW its the Cascadia Weekly that has the column (the Grist) on the shenanigans of the County Council)
BTW all out there, it is a FREE weekly paper that actually provides information!
General Winfield Stuck
@mcd410x: No dem president ever leads a dem congress the way Bush led the wingnut one recently. It’s just not in their makeup to take top down directives like that. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes, and save for one non dem, the vindictive little bitch Holy Joe, we would have a senate bill with a Medicare expansion, at least, for the House to pass.
Like I said, it is now time for Obama to re calibrate to make his will known more clearly and concisely. But really, when you look at it, dems have gotten most of what they wanted up until HCR, and that was always going to be close, no matter.
The Senate is a separate branch and they choose their leaders and decide who takes the front in talking to the press and generally who is, or what sub caucus is dominant. IMO, dems are still afraid of the specter of Reagan, who played them like a fiddle and put lasting fear in their souls. Though the country at the time was in it’s own cycle of letting conservatives, or wingnuts run the show for 30 years.
The big mistake, I think, is a senate that has an overwhelming number of liberal members, and will likely have more when the Maine ladies retire, and need to break free of the fear of being too liberal that might have served a purpose before now. But the country has put them in superior numbers in the dem caucus and THEY need to take charge of that chamber, with some good old pragmatic style progressivism, not the ideological kind.
And I think the country would respond with more support. And it would serve to soften the tight wingnut fist of ideological obstruction by the GOP caucus to every thing dems do.
Now we have centrist leadership in the dem caucus and conservative members being the darlings and running stuff when they are actually few. That needs to change. The House has to a large degree, and I think Pelosi is the epitome of great pragmatic progressivism leadership./
Bill H
@mlas:
Man, I have been advocating that for years. Congress as a whole has 19% approval, but “my representative” has 89% approval and gets reelected in droves.
(Percents are approximations, but the principle is valid.)
Elie
@mcd410x:
Exactly
Dennis-SGMM
@Elie:
This is a blog – isn’t it? I don’t notice your name on the masthead and even it was there I don’t believe that I need to ask your permission to post. Are you Obama’s chamber pot keeper? Harry Reid’s? Or are you just a garden variety coprophilliac?
Again: go fuck yourself.
Accidental Blogger
Welcome to the Democratic Party! We’ve been failing to do anything of significance since sometime in the early 70s. We specialize in raised hopes, shattered dreams and being scared by our own shadow. And, also.
Elie
@Dennis-SGMM:
I think that you cannot read.
I did not ask you to ask for permission to post — only to not post on behalf of a man quite capable of posting and commenting for himself. I dont think that Chuck needs your defense.. You seem to though. Are you part of this posse?
Mind your own issues. I have no quarrel with you or necessarily with Chuck. Just laying down my opinion and asking for space — from HIM — ya know, directly to the commenter, like we do on blogs…
Baskaborr
It sucks to be a Democrat. But faced with a choice between the chaos and cowardice of the Democratic Party and the outright evil of the Republicans my conscience demands I remain a Dem.
The Truffle
@Frank Chow: These aren’t “whimpering” Dems. These are Blue Dogs who are one step away from being Repubs.
The Raven
My analysis of the situation of the Democratic Party. Perhaps it will help clarify some of the choices we face as citizens. Rereading it, I now find the conclusions unnecessarily pessimistic, but I still like the analysis & hope that others will read it.
Uriel
@Kobie:
Wrong. And I have Henny Penny and a three headed goat right here to prove it.
Chuck Butcher
@Elie: asking for space—from HIM
General Winfield Stuck
@Chuck Butcher:
What was said then was in the heat of debate. There likely isn’t going to be a bill. You win. And on a thread that talks about none of that, you still make smart ass remarks. That is nursing resentment, and feel free to keep doing it and I will respond the way I want.
Elie
@Chuck Butcher:
Oh for Pete’s sake. Ok .. Mea Culpa…I was so wrong to doubt you most erudite and smart wonder man who knows all…
God help me to ask you for any mercy. Know that none will be given and that is ok.
You are what you are.
Democrat you say? Liberal?
Naw. Just another hot bag of judgemental air..
I for one dont care what you think. You have proven in your ongoing self serving resentful and whinny commentary to be just a drag to read. You have nothing important to say. Save it for your little Dennis bot. He’ll carry your righteous bonafide “true glitter” leftie creds for you in your own gold plated chamber pot.
Chuck Butcher
@Elie:
Well now, that’s a little better.
Let’s get something a bit straight here, I didn’t start this pissing contest. I stated what I saw as failures in a bill. I didn’t like what a pretend Democratic Caucus passed out of the Senate. I’ve watched every Democratic intitiative in the last 30 years get watered down into a GOP mess, fake wars get started with (D) help, economic catastrophes abetted by (D)s, and been called pie in the sky lefty forever and watched things sink thanks your types of poitics. Now when you get the fruit of your behavior your feelings are hurt and, yes, you blame the left.
I didn’t like it, don’t like it, and it is utter nonsense. Factually horseshit.
Chuck Butcher
@Elie:
I’ll take the Democrat part, but that liberal stuff is an insult and don’t think progressive will improve on it.
PTirebiter
Corporations are now guaranteed free speech, HCR and now this? I cast the first vote of my life for George McGovern and this is my first genuine crisis of faith in my party. Today may have bent it for me. I don’t think we really believe in our own fucking ideas anymore. We’re afraid they won’t work, and we can’t stand the idea of getting blamed by the people we swear we’re trying to help. Why risk embarrassing ourselves on stage, when we can sit in the audience and write scathing reviews? It’s easier and a lot more fun. We’ll be happy to direct when someone has a project worthy of our talents, but we don’t do auditions. Fuck this hurts.
batgirl
@Stroszek: This, a hundred times over.
Ailuridae
@Chuck Butcher:
No, you delusional fool. People here are angry that the left of its party within the Congressional ranks might piss away a historic chance to pass truly progressive legislation because the left of its rank and file, people like you, are being dishonest twits demagoguing an issue because they didn’t get their fucking pony, People here thought not taking big, sweeping progressive change because it wasn’t exactly what Jane Hamsher and you wanted a week ago was fucking stupid. And those same people are pissed right now at House Dems for rejecting big, sweeping progressive change because its not exactly what Anthony Wiener wants.
There is anger here. Lots of fucking anger because some of us understood this purity marching Raul and his ilk out on the branch was fucking disastrous.
Also, as you are telling people to go fuck themselves: you’re either a uninformed rube or a maliciously, disingenuous prick. Being old doesn’t make you right it just means you’be been really fucking wrong for a long time.
Ailuridae
@Chuck Butcher:
I didn’t like it, don’t like it, and it is utter nonsense. Factually horseshit.
Err, the asshole who claimed for months that there were 5000 dollar deductibles in the Senate bill despite being quoted the actual fucking bill with a link is claiming factual horseshit? Who responded to the levels of subsidies in the bill by quoting what insurance currently cost in his mythical market is claiming factual horseshit? The man who no less less than a half dozen times when the excise tax came up tried to pass it off as something that would possibly affect the individual market despite being corrected every time that wasn’t the case? The same person who the same number of times tried to represent that the excise tax was on the total value of the plan and charged directly to the employee?
That’s endearing. Again, you didn’t get your way and you adopted right wing framing and argument style. I’m surprised you didn’t start talking about death panels.
batgirl
@J. Michael Neal: I sent an email to the WH asking for my money back so it could go to the local food bank where it would actually make a difference. An exercise in futility but it made me feel better for a sec.
Elie
@Chuck Butcher:
I will not argue with your observations about the bill. Only about your willingness to (encouragement no less) to blow it up on some false altar of perfection.
Too many lives, man, too much suffering to just walk past for you and your other glitter idealists to play your strategy games with. You do not respect real people’s needs. I asked YOU personally to leave it alone, hold back right now and received your contempt and judgement as response. You gloated in our sadness and disappointment!
A mensch who was really interested in growing ideas or really interested in the community might have said, “Hey Elie, as you know I saw that coming, but I appreciate how you must be feeling. It is a horrible thing to lose your faith and hope in something that you wished for so long. I know how that feels so lets engage and talk about this and lessons learned some other time.” I would have so respected that! I actually needed that!
That says a lot about you and the perspective you take from your high high wooden horse. Your libertarian ideals come with no heart and therefore are not useful to our society and what we need. We have plenty of flying monkeys with hearts of ice dictating what they think the world should be. You are no different than they. Your narcissism and ideology dicatate all you are.
Sadly, t’aint much from a human perspective. Just blah blah blah blah and ego.
Elie
@Ailuridae:
A- He’s a Libertarian
You know – Special
Its just about him and his needs and perspective. He doesnt care about the “little guy” — he doesnt want to distribute cost of the program over everyone to make sure that everyone has coverage. He just wants HIS coverage to be cheaper and 100% available for life.
He doesnt want everyone to be covered…just him and his relatives and friends — ya know — the righteous people who deserve coverage because they have jobs and pay taxes and Lord knows only they deserve it.
I want to clear my mouth and spit on the ground it gives me such a bad taste..
Ming
god. fucking, damnit.
Chuck Butcher
@Ailuridae:
You don’t like that I quoted you what policies are available at what price? OK, then don’t like it. You don’t like that virtually every construction hand that’s worked a year for me would be just outside the subsidies, then don’t like it. I don’t like that them being just outside of it means a load they can’t afford. But then I write paychecks and sweat next to these guys and know their situation in reality rather than theory. I also know that if I tried to provide HC for them I’d have no work for them since I’d be priced out of the market unless I worked myself for less than minimum wage.
I tried to tell you what happens at the blue collar end that I know intimately, rather than paper pusher theory. These guys get eaten by the work we do. It eats your body and you’re going to get hurt – it is statistically more dangerous than being a cop or fireman. WC may cover the injury at the time, it will haunt you.
I also tried to tell you how it would appear to the electorate, you didn’t like that. You also haven’t much liked MA. I don’t know how I feel about MA, a lesson learned is a good thing if it is the right one and it also puts the mythical 60 to rest. Joe Ho is no longer kingmaker, I’d drown him in his GOP bathwater but I ain’t a clubby Senator either.
I missed poverty line by $400/yr and used existing data, not speculation and you call me a liar. ok. You’re an ass of the first magnitude to lump me with Hamsher or her with the left. I’d be curious to know how many thousands of miles you’ve traveled for the Party on your dime and how many thousands you’ve spent of your money trying to get them elected and done it on a blue collar income. Thousands each per year in my case. How many winning Pres campaigns have used your framing and words for a candidate’s political statements? How many Senators are on a first name basis with you because you’ve been damn useful to them? Two in my case.
Since you’re so right and I’m so wrong there’ll be no problem whatever getting this mess through the House because about the only purists in that body are the Stupec variety. You’re proposing that the House (D) would let something pretty good that is signature legislation go away over purity from the left. You have funny ideas, bub. I am well left of the House and very nearly as pragmatic, if you’ve gor problems there, it isn’t leftist purity. There is a problem with your optimistic outcomes versus their view and politcians are damn good at missing unintended outcomes, especially for the blue collar world.
Ailuridae
@Chuck Butcher:
You don’t like that I quoted you what policies are available at what price? OK, then don’t like it. You don’t like that virtually every construction hand that’s worked a year for me would be just outside the subsidies, then don’t like it. I don’t like that them being just outside of it means a load they can’t afford. But then I write paychecks and sweat next to these guys and know their situation in reality rather than theory. I also know that if I tried to provide HC for them I’d have no work for them since I’d be priced out of the market unless I worked myself for less than minimum wage.
This is bullshit. Its been bullshit every time you type it. And yet you still keep typing it. Thats because you simply have no fucking integrity. No matter what insurance costs in your area, if there is a federal subsidy that will cover everything to insure you above cost X so that you only pay X. That’s what a fucking max contribution means. So if, as you claim insurance is 1000 dollars a month wherever you are in OR and the sliding scale says that a person making 32K max monthly contribution is 159 dollars then that person pays ….. 159 fucking dollars. And if insurance costs 500 a month that person pays …. 159 fucking dollars. Etc. How many times do you have to have this explained to you? Do you think legislation is written in invisible ink?
I tried to tell you what happens at the blue collar end that I know intimately, rather than paper pusher theory. These guys get eaten by the work we do. It eats your body and you’re going to get hurt – it is statistically more dangerous than being a cop or fireman. WC may cover the injury at the time, it will haunt you.
if they can’t afford insurance now and they can’t afford insurance then then nothing changes for them. There are hardship waivers. Nobody every claimed all 44M were going to be covered. But fuckign the other 30-35M because of your anecdotal evidence (which I think is fucking horseshit)? Fuck that. Thats unjust.
I missed poverty line by $400/yr and used existing data, not speculation and you call me a liar. ok. You’re an ass of the first magnitude to lump me with Hamsher or her with the left. I’d be curious to know how many thousands of miles you’ve traveled for the Party on your dime and how many thousands you’ve spent of your money trying to get them elected and done it on a blue collar income. Thousands each per year in my case. How many winning Pres campaigns have used your framing and words for a candidate’s political statements? How many Senators are on a first name basis with you because you’ve been damn useful to them? Two in my case
If you missed the poverty line by 400 dollars you would get free Medicaid. Thats what 133% of the poverty line means. So the previous four times I pointed this out to you did you not read it or are you just fucking lying? Thats why you pass legislation like this – to help those near poverty whether it be 133% or 150% of the FPL to get insurance and provide them some economic security. Or is the legislation just all big lies?
And you don’t know what I’ve done for this party. Or what I do for a living. Because I am a fucking adult and not just old and don’t have to argue every time I don’t get my way by claiming poverty and “woe is me because of everything I do for the party” because none of that matters when talking about whether a policy is wise or just or politically prudent. You do that because you have and nothing else. When confronted with actual fucking facts you ignore them until you can pop up in another thread and make up the same BS lies and FUD. And when you get called on it you pout like a fucking twelve year old. And every time you do it I’m going to be here, with the facts. So keep it up. Its just your name you’re sullying.
Chuck Butcher
@Ailuridae:
ok you stupid fuck, I quoted an older poverty line and used the 133% figure to you. that’s the $400/yr I missed. I am personally well above that, well until this last 6mo anyhow. I didn’t fucking lie, you’ve made the same claims repeatedly and I used your fucking numbers. $159/ mo asshole and that sinks them, it is a mandated tax that fucks them and in return hits them – per available policies – with deductibles that’ll smash them. Fuck you. You aren’t fixing their lives with this, they’d get the care anyhow and with the deductibles will avoid the shit that would take them out of riskier positions, because of the cost. You don’t get this because you don’t live their lives. This isn’t some handful of people, oh I forgot, they can pay a fine if they just plain refuse to be fucked over.
The $1800/yr you take out of their pocket would pay for the hernia repair that they’ll have to pay for anyhow under your plan. With (charitably) a $5K deductible they’re out $6800 for that year if they go into the hospital for much of anything. They’re working real hard to skin along the edge and now they’re over it. But you’ve insured the hospital against their losses past that $5K if they go under and if they’re in long those lost wages ain’t gonna help.
You’ve done not shit about health costs other than make the Fed/taxpayers guarantors of thehealth industry’s profits other than the nick of what percentage of dollars go to profit for Ins Cos and boy, accountants are clever people.
As for the excise tax, you’ve got me mixed up with somebody because I’ve never brought that up.
I also tried to tell you how this is going to play with the electorate and that ain’t my framing, it is what is going to be played against you. I tell you again, if you don’t like the fact that it is going to work, get a different electorate.
I gave you my bona fides that I ain’t just a rock thrower, I don’t actually give a shit what you’ve done or do. In fact, if I were running a campaign I’d keep you as far from the public as possible and find something other useful.
I never, not once, said there is nothing good in the bill. The House is your problem and if it is so good, it’s a cakewalk. Your the one selling it so hard and if they ain’t buying; it sure ain’t to keep lefty cred, I’ve got no vote and I have done exactly not one thing to interfere at that level other than resign Party offices. Given any half-assed excuse the left always caves to the “middle” no matter how far right it keeps shifting. Evidently you best sit them Reps down and straighten them out because surely those pros would get it.
Ailuridae
@Chuck Butcher:
ok you stupid fuck, I quoted an older poverty line and used the 133% figure to you. that’s the $400/yr I missed. I am personally well above that, well until this last 6mo anyhow. I didn’t fucking lie, you’ve made the same claims repeatedly and I used your fucking numbers. $159/ mo asshole and that sinks them, it is a mandated tax that fucks them and in return hits them – per available policies – with deductibles that’ll smash them. Fuck you. You aren’t fixing their lives with this, they’d get the care anyhow and with the deductibles will avoid the shit that would take them out of riskier positions, because of the cost. You don’t get this because you don’t live their lives. This isn’t some handful of people, oh I forgot, they can pay a fine if they just plain refuse to be fucked over.
Really? I’ve corrected that same BS lie of yours about being $400 over the poverty line and not being able to afford insurance five fucking times. Its good that you will presumably stop lying. I’ve never claimed that the FPL was anything but what it was; you’ve consistently said that you were $400 dollars over it and this bill would fuck you despite meaning it would qualify you for free fucking health care.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3004
Now, if you are now claiming you are at 134% of poverty your maximum out of pocket expense for health care is 580$. Again, you can get a hardship waiver. That’s for a 95% actuarial plan – a shade under 50$ a month.
If $159 sinks them, they are some of the 10M that don’t get insurance. And that stinks. If they can’t afford the insurance they get a hardship exemption. Nobody who can’t afford insurance is going to have to pay the penalty. They are in no different position than they were before. And that sucks for them. But it doesn’t suck for the 31-35M who will be insured. And insuring those people is progress.
The $1800/yr you take out of their pocket would pay for the hernia repair that they’ll have to pay for anyhow under your plan. With (charitably) a $5K deductible they’re out $6800 for that year if they go into the hospital for much of anything. They’re working real hard to skin along the edge and now they’re over it. But you’ve insured the hospital against their losses past that $5K if they go under and if they’re in long those lost wages ain’t gonna help.
Their is no 5K deductible. Do you not understand what a deductible is? Deductible and maximum out of pocket expenses aren’t the same thing. I have no idea why you insist on conflating them.
I never, not once, said there is nothing good in the bill. The House is your problem and if it is so good, it’s a cakewalk. Your the one selling it so hard and if they ain’t buying; it sure ain’t to keep lefty cred, I’ve got no vote and I have done exactly not one thing to interfere at that level other than resign Party offices. Given any half-assed excuse the left always caves to the “middle” no matter how far right it keeps shifting. Evidently you best sit them Reps down and straighten them out because surely those pros would get it.
This is, per usual, fucking gibberish.
Well its good that you stopped 1) pretending that the costs you found online for current insurance would be paid by every person not in poverty and 2) stopped pretending you were $400 over the poverty line and this plan would do nothing for you.
If we can cut out 3 or 4 of your more persistent lies you might be able to get somewhere.
Chuck Butcher
I had a good solid reference for the health care use factors in reducing expenses and fatalities and I’ll be damned if I can find it. Since it’s been years since I used the data I may have the order somewhat messed up, but it was what you’d expect if you thought about it anyhow.
1)Primary physicians regularly
2)Low cost corrective medical procedures promptly
3) High cost corrective medical procedures
1&2 greatly reduce the reliance on 3, I forget how large the population percentage was that avoided 3 until elderly, but it was larger than I’d actually thought it would be.
Ailuridae
@Chuck Butcher:
All preventative care is covered by any new plans withing both house and senate plans without copay. My understanding is that this would be pretty broad in scope but obviously covers immunizations, BP screenings and the like.
The hierarchy above is basically why systems like NHS and the VA are so inexpensive and so successful – same doctor, patient never leaves system, records are available everywhere, etc. Essentially each patient gets to 3 a lot later and a lot less often.
Chuck Butcher
Let me type real slowly so you can get this, the figure I used for the poverty line was old and was $400/yr less than the current one when I calculated the 133% last time and you pitched a bitch then. I have never made a single statement about my funds, other than right here that I’m not poverty. Why you are so resistant to that is beyond me.
Your problem is that unenrollment in poverty programs is a good sized part of the uninsured number. My state stuggles with that and so do quite a few others. I’ve never had at hand the national numbers, but it isn’t good. You have a large block of the population that is truely fucked because they aren’t poor but they aren’t much more than that. At least part of the problem is the Fed looks at income from something other than the way it works. A big portion of the middle income is in the same boat – though they’re starting to learn (sadly) Something has to give for them to pay that $50-159/mo.
Most policies I know of around here don’t pay a dime until you’ve burnt up the deductible, each year. There is some variation in that. That is in this State and the variations have various costs.
All I’ve said about my personal situation with ins is that I can find a way to avoid it, if I choose.
I’ll give you an example of how this goes wrong, a friend has a damaged hip and because he’s not disabled enough the ins co won’t pay for the expensive correction that would fix it so he can have one that doesn’t that is all his to pay. So he’s waiting until he’s screwed up enough that his payment covers part of the expensive one on the ins co’s dime. The added damage he’s going to incur is going to add a lot of cost to that, but that’s the ins co’s problem – and every other insured’s.
Chuck Butcher
Since a theme is how one is personally affected here’s this – for me it would be a waste of my money until 65 but for my wife, even with me thrown in as a waste, it would be a steal. It isn’t a case of gambling, it is only a question of when I’m ruined without insurance I cannot possibly pay for if someone was stupid enough to write it … they’re not. The only question is if she holds together until it would take effect.
Libertarian is a fucking joke.
Chuck Butcher
@Elie:
You’re pathetic. You throw gratuitous insults for weeks and don’t like being called on it. My special friends you say? 40 years ago you’d have been hard pressed to find someone with a tool in their hand that didn’t vote (D) … and now?
Yeah, they’re my friends and they built the modern Democratic Party. Then you get this:
As much as I hate {R} they occassionally get something right and that is that a good chunk of that 35M belong in existing poverty programs and for some reason aren’t enrolled. I know that because the (D) in this state have made a real push to get them in, fighting the {R} all the way. It’s inconvenient, but it is true.
This bill is what it is and there is a real reason the HOUSE is being a bitch and it isn’t purity. The left always caves on left issues so it isn’t that. They know how to read polls, they have actual experts and know all about the 30% that wouldn’t vote for The Second Coming if it had a (D) on it.
I don’t want anybody to have to face ruin over health care – nobody – and I never thought I’d have my way on that. I never thought any of the sensible models other nations use had a chance. I’d hoped for something that set a path to sensible. This thing just extends the suffering a bit longer until the mess crashes. Maybe it puts it off 10 years and I’ll be “safely” in Medicare. If you’re going to fix a tire you have to at least put a jack under the car – this just blows the tire back up. I’m worried about your kids or your grandkids (depending on your age) yeah, I’m a libertarian you silly twit. I’ll personally do better out of this bill than no bill. Absolute fucking truth. I knew that when the Senate passed the damned thing. I also knew that if I didn’t want to get caught up in it I could.
Equating Jane Hamsher with the Democratic left is like calling the Weather Underground the Democratic Party.
Chuck
It pains me that I have the same first name as the other asshole around here. Frankly Chuck B, I think you’re more toxic than Makewi.