Kevin Drum passes along this chart from Steve Benen showing private sector job losses and gains from 2008 through August of 2010. The red is the part where the economy tanked after eight years of Bush administration policies, and the blue part is where the Obama administration started to patch things up. The scary part is the part we can’t see yet.
Despite jobs added over the summer it sure does look like private sector hiring is grinding to a halt, as Kevin suggests. That means we can either look forward to another dip or we can do something about it. Doing nothing at this point would be a big mistake. Maybe I’m just turning into a latter-day Keynsian, but I find this Krugman column pretty damn convincing.
What I do know is that if the Republicans take back Congress this year, there’s only so much time Democrats have to enact more stimulus spending – and don’t count on anything but dirty tricks and obstructionism from a GOP controlled House. The clock is ticking, folks. Pretty soon all attempts at actual policy making are going out the window. All we’ll have to look forward to are witch hunts, another great American pastime to be sure, but not a very good stand-in for actual economic recovery.
Turgidson
So not only are you not a conservative, but you are considerably to the left of a decent swath of the Democratic party, you sockiaulist hippy. Good to have you.
AhabTRuler
It is then reassuring to know that at the federal agency that I work at, they are cutting back on hiring in my department and leaving us understaffed.
Eh, those aren’t real jobs anyway.
FormerSwingVoter
It’s worth noting that “latter-day Keynesian” is not an insult. New Keynesian Economics, of which both Krugman and Mankiw are disciples, is much more skeptical of government intrusion, but points pretty clearly toward fiscal stimulus when interest rates are at or near zero.
Something conservatives need to understand is that Keynesian economics doesn’t mean what they think it means. The policies being promoted by today’s Keynesians is much different than those of the Keynesians of the 60’s and 70’s, particularly during a healthy economy or during a minor recession. I’d argue that it’s essentially a hybrid of Keynesianism and Friedman’s monetarist principles.
A good example of the difference can be found at one of Brad DeLong’s articles at The Week. Note that he goes out of his way to point out how bad of an idea fiscal stimulus in a normal economy is. Also note that this is not (obviously) a normal economy.
General Stuck
these wild fluctuations are abnormally normal for convert libtards. Sometimes we have to tie a rope to Cole’s ass to keep him from falling into the progressive pit of many sorrows. also too.
Tonal Crow
Does anyone know whether the Federal Reserve’s authorizing legislation permits it to make loans directly to nonbank businesses and individuals?
If so, the administration could still substantially stoke (alliteration intended) the economy without pushing additional legislation through Congress.
Also I’d very much like to see the Democrats use the lame-duck session to pass the Energy Jobs Act (a.k.a. CO2 limits). And if they’ve got to pass it out of the Senate by only a majority, DO IT, and let the GOPers scream to the courts. We’ve got a climate emergency on our hands, and the time for bullshit denialist obstructionism ran out at least 5 years ago.
morzer
ED Kain celebrates his liberation by turning the wheel hard left and racing towards communism.
Well played, sir!
Bob Loblaw
People should have never bought into the ‘letter W’ scare. There wasn’t anything from the demand fundamentals that truly justified it. It just encourages the financiers and wealthy classes to maintain their line of propaganda. No double dip, quarter after quarter of positive growth (yes, under 2% gdp growth is totally robust!), everything’s fine!!!
It’s all about the ‘letter L.’ Not double dip, but jobless recovery and a permanent output gap. And that’s where we are, and where we’ll likely be. Thanks Congress. Thanks Fed. Thanks Obama administration. You guys are true heroes.
freelancer
Thanks for that Economist link. I’m now going to draw a warm bath, put on some Bon Iver, slit my wrists, and drift into death.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
GOP Mission Accomplished
I think the smarter set in the GOP permanent campaign apparatus know perfectly well that New Keynesian Economics is a reasonably accurate and correct guide to economic policy, and that if Obama, et. al. had been able to pull the economy back to a sustained recovery that the GOP were going to be fncked at the polls for a generation, and have made it their #1 mission to make sure the economy did not, and will not recover. By any means necessary. Even if it meant deliberately pushing for a harmful policy. I think much of the base is too ignorant to realize that they are actually harming the country, but the people at the top, not so much.
In other words, GOP = the party of economic treason.
General Stuck
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I would go with party of power hungry nihilism, but treason will do in a pinch.
Anyways, if your a big keynesian fan, Obama is going to announce his desire for a new stimulus next week, but unless it’s 40 trillion and change, it will just be more fail and give Kthug another sad.
Redshift
@FormerSwingVoter:
For those conservatives who actually traffic in the word, “Keynesian” doesn’t mean anything, it’s just a more highbrow version of the teabaggers screaming “Socialist!”
Tonal Crow
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: This. How I’d love to get the strategy documents that show it in black and white. If there’re still any patriots in the GOP, now’s the time for them to discover the virtues of Wikileaks.
Hiram Taine
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
But none dare call it that.
h/t Vincent Bugliosi
Jules
Ezra Klien
db
E.D. – I’ve enjoyed all your posts since joining b-juice…. especially this latest post; it is a strong call for action.
But then we again maybe it’s just better for all of us to go Galt.
jwb
The Dems won’t touch the issue in a lame duck session if the goopers win in November. So really it’s only a question of what the Dems might pass before November.
jwb
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: The question is why the Obama economic team bought into it.
cleek
which means it’s a good time for Dems to go on vacation, or to find a bunch of Blue Dogs to cower behind.
and it’s a good time for libs to claim Obama’s playing a “long game” – even though that means people are out of work waiting for him to wave his magic wand.
fucking Dems. i’d stand behind you if you gave even a hint that you’re willing to stand up and lead the charge.
Violet
E.D. Kain has moved from right to left so quickly it’s left me with whiplash. Welcome to the soshulist paradise, Kain. It’s fun to be a hippie!
jwb
@General Stuck: I bet he doesn’t use the word “stimulus.”
marcopolo
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
I think this gets the Republican position just about right over the past couple years.
As for the Democrats, sure the responsible thing to do would be to push for more stimulus to keep a fire going under the economy, lower the unemployment rate, and keep the country from a Japanese-style “lost decade” but politically there isn’t a lot of upside to being responsible prior to the midterms. Nothing Democrats might manage to pass right now will help them at all in November: rather, it is much more likely that with the way the Rethuglicans have framed “stimulus” funds as wasteful government spending that doesn’t actually help the economy (abetted by the Dems seeming inability to pound a coherent message about the value of stimulus spending into the ADD brain of the average citizen) that the Democrats will take an additional hit for making the attempt for a second stimulus package, and, wait for it, if somehow they were successful and got the economy turned around the Republicans, who will most likely be the majority in the House for the next two years, will take credit for the turnaround.
So, for most Democratic politicians in the House and Senate being responsible public servants really doesn’t have a lot of political upside. This is the screwed up politics we have now across a broad swath of issues due to a majority of citizens in our country seemingly still seeing the Republican party as a serious organization of people instead the the batshite loonybin it really is.
arguingwithsignposts
funny thing is remembering how HCR was the apocalypse last summer, now, here we are again with the firebaggers on one side and the teabaggers on the other looking down the barrel of an even larger crisis.
arguingwithsignposts
@Violet:
Shhhh. the professional left might hear you!
Just Some Fuckhead
My favorite thing at Balloon-Juice is ex-Republicans, who broke the fucking world, now telling us how to fix it. Thank you, lords of destruction.
Tonal Crow
@jwb: If so, that’s stupid beyond belief. Action is necessary (on both climate and jobs), and the political price — or payoff — will be 2 years hence. Let the GOP scream. It’s all they do anyway.
Bob Loblaw
Heaven forbid the Democrats should have offered the ACA reforms to all state CHIP and Medicaid funding instead of just the expansion. It’s not like that would have helped individual state solvency crises. Nah, the CBO score was way more important. Sucks for those who keep getting fired and furloughed though. Onward my little Hoovers! Sucks for the people who will continue to go without affordable health insurance for another four years too. I noticed that businesses don’t seem to be doing a lot of cost sharing on those premium raises these days. It’s a fucking mystery.
There appears to be no way of shaking the GOP from its utter nihilism. This is why Democratic incompetence is so galling. The GOP is trying to actively burn the country down and the Dems are blundering around with their eyes closed trying to put the fire out in the wrong direction. Great news if you’re a shareholder of JP Morgan though. So there’s always that.
jwb
@Violet: Well, go to ED’s other site, look at the conversation he had yesterday with Larison, and you’ll see he hasn’t moved left nearly as fast as he wants us to believe. It’s fine that he wants to get along here, but do recognize that ED is also fond of playing to the crowd.
morzer
@Violet:
Rumors of ED Kain skinnydipping in the moonlight are running through the internets as we speak…
WereBear
Yes, exactly. As though they didn’t already have enough deaths on their heads, and blood on their hands.
General Stuck
@jwb: I doubt he does either, and shouldn’t have called the first one that, though it’s official name was the recovery act. It was sold as stimulus, because calling it what it mostly was, which was a progressive initiatives bill wouldn have been easy for the tards to demagogue. Whatever he calls it, it had better include funds to keep the states from folding up like cheap suits, and I hope he would just come out and say this shit is going to be long term, and prepare the country. But in our 24 news cycle, he would get pounded for that.
morzer
Incidentally, David Brooks has clearly been hitting the creme de menthe.. or possibly DeMint.. just a little too hard:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/opinion/03brooks.html?src=me&ref=general
Bob Loblaw
@jwb:
Tax cuts for small businesses! Tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts!
jwb
@Tonal Crow: No, some of the Dems will want to hang the economic conditions around the goopers’ necks, Obama will say something about wanting to work with the new gooper majority, and a good number of the remaining Dems will be cowed in deference to the power of the teabaggers. There will be enough in any case, that nothing will be able to be accomplished before the goopers take control.
James E. Powell
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
The Republican strategy, even before election day, was to make sure the Obama administration accomplished nothing. It was a simple plan and they stuck to it with their typical persistence in the face of evidence. Guess what? It worked.
Imagine what August might have been like if just prior to the recess the Obama administration had proposed a jobs bill coupled with infrastructure projects. The story might have been Obama struggles to get the country back to work while Republicans stall.
Tonal Crow
@morzer: Aw c’mon, everyone knows that Bobo can’t do math. But he sure can do propaganda. Ooooooo baby!
Violet
@cleek:
Gawd, ain’t that the truth. They cower from everything. OMG! Fox News is saying we’re spendthrifts. Quick, spout a Republican talking point about deficits! Sarah Palin says we heart Muslims. Quick, declare freedom of religion a good idea but “misguided” in practice!
The spinelessness of the Dems is so frustrating. The Republicans are evil, but the Dems are only marginally less so. They enable evil by refusing to stand up for what’s right.
Tonal Crow
@jwb: I refuse to give in to cyni…I won’t…I won’t…I tell’ee, I won’t do it….
Keith G
I know I can be fucked in the head, still I have this growing notion that the dark side might as well win everything.
The American people have become so malcontent and whiny, that they might as well have something to truly whine about. Hell, after the new Congress begins, Obama and Biden need to tell America to fuck off as they resign in tandem.
President Boner would be such a sweet deal that America has totally earned.
Tonal Crow
@James E. Powell: But but but you gotta get 60 votes in the Senate….
jwb
@General Stuck: I will be very surprised if I’m it even comes close to adequately helping the states. I’m guessing very tepid, with a heavy emphasis on tax cuts. And I blame his economic team.
morzer
@Tonal Crow:
What puzzles me is why no-one has realized that Bobo is on crack. His alternate version ignores the reality of the stimulus having too many tax cuts that weren’t effective, forgets the right-wing crazy machine, and ignores the way energy policy has been demagogued to death by supposedly principled Republicans.
WereBear
@James E. Powell: I believe you have not yet gotten it.
The story is whatever the Lords of Media decide it is.
Short of taking hostages at Black Rock, (and I am emphatically not recommending it) there is nothing a Dem, or Dem supporter, can do to shape the narrative. For the love of peanut butter, this administration accomplished HCR, after seventy years of trying, and in a normal world they would still be talking about that.
Instead we got… what we got.
Tonal Crow
@morzer: Not to mention that his alternative still would raise the deficit that he just moaned about the impossibility of raising.
morzer
@Tonal Crow:
Well, if you are going to quibble about the minor details…
arguingwithsignposts
@Violet and @cleek:
Careful with the extremely large brushes there. The fact is there *are* dems standing up to evil (Franken comes to mind, also Grayson, sometimes Wiener, etc.). But there are also some dems who are shitheads. And they don’t do the “whole party votes the same” song and dance as well as the repubs.
there is also the coverage to consider. How many real dems are on the Sunday Morning wankfests? While there is a portion of spinelessness on the dems’ part, it’s not the only contributing factor to this clusterfuck.
Violet
@jwb:
Yeah, someone linked to that last night. I have it open on Firefox, but haven’t read it yet.
ED Kain, a question: Why did you respond to Larison’s (and others’) critique of your post here at Balloon Juice by writing a post over at the LOOG? Are you going to post on it here? It just seems weird to address the critique of a post you wrote here by responding on another blog.
arguingwithsignposts
@Violet:
Yes, this does seem to breech the etiquette that was set up after the last LOOG kerfuffle. Good question.
p.s. – Conor Friedersdorf is no more “reasonable” than his other wingnut welfare buddies.
Violet
@arguingwithsignposts:
Of course there are some exceptions. Nancy Pelosi has done a good job too, although she’s not as vocal. But the end result is the same, no matter how many Dems you have that do stand up. The end result is that the Dem response is wimpy. It seems to me it’s because they don’t, as a whole, have their shit together. They don’t challenge the Republicans when they lie. They try to be agreeable, so start at the middle then have to move right when compromising. They, as a whole, show little willingness to fight for the little guy. They seem to cower and cave at the earliest opportunity. As a whole. Obviously there are exceptions.
I know the Dems don’t control the media. But that’s not the sole problem. If the Dems decided to be smart with their messaging, the media would eventually cover it. They might be slow, but they’d get there. Instead the Dems struggle to settle on a message and do everything they can to water it down when they do get one. The opportunities to stand for something are massive. The Dems, again, as a whole, just seem unwilling to do it.
WereBear
I think that Dems, in general are not deranged psychopaths who will do and say anything; I think that holds them back a bit.
Now, I adore the way Al Franken does slapdowns, and the way Grayson gets out there and frames the issue in a way no one can ignore (Republican Health Plan: Don’t get sick. Part Two: Die quickly.) and the passion and emphasis of Anthony Weiner is fantastic. But not everyone is gifted this way.
It doesn’t take talent to be an asshole; Republicans ask little more than the willingness to try.
Just Some Fuckhead
@James E. Powell: Yeah, and a narrative could have been built that the Obama administration tried to do the right thing and failed.
jwb
@Violet: Yeah, that was me last night.
Davis X. Machina
The story would have been ‘Key Obama job initiative fails in Senate’. Nor would you see any mention of why it failed, or why it only failed in the Senate, or that no Democrats in the Senate voted against it.
The Borg doesn’t grade on a curve, and they don’t grade on effort.
Mnemosyne
@James E. Powell:
You mean like the bill that the House returned from vacation to vote on? The one that was less than a month ago?
Jesus, talk about the ADD public.
Mnemosyne
@Davis X. Machina:
More like “Senate Rejects Massive Obama Spending Bill.”
Just Some Fuckhead
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, better to have never loved than loved and lost.
AhabTRuler
@Violet: Jeez, I mean it isn’t as insular as The Atlantic Circle-jerk(TM), but there seems to be a great deal of 69ing amongst the blogospheric navel-gazing.
And can’t Larison keep it snappy by saying that he wants to punch Kain in the neck? Can’t Kain respond with something pithy about tire-rims and anthrax? That’s really more my speed.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@jwb:
You would be a lot more convincing if you would stay closer to reality. Obama has spent just about every Saturday address for the last three months laying into the Republicans hard. He simply has not been saying what you are claiming he’s been saying.
So, the rest of your analysis suffers from false assumptions.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@WereBear:
Of course, it looks like Grayson is toast in his re-election campaign. If only Democrats would show more spine, they’d win all the elections.
Mnemosyne
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Well, some people here are busily pretending that absolutely nothing was attempted before the recess so they can whine and complain about how Democrats aren’t even trying, because God forbid reality should get in the way of their pre-formed narrative. For those people, it’s more like, “Better to jerk off to a Playboy centerfold than to even try to meet a real person.”
Just Some Fuckhead
@Mnemosyne: No, I get you. It’s easier to make excuses for inaction.
PS. I loved the Fox Newsesque “Some people..” Nice touch.
jwb
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN): You want to bet on how accommodating Obama is toward the Gooper majority on the day after the election in November—assuming the Goopers do win.
ETA: What do you think I’m saying that he’s saying about the Goopers now? I think his economic team is working with a Gooper (or rather banker) framework, but I don’t think I’ve said anything about Obama working with the goopers right now. What I am claiming is that Obama will try to act accommodating toward the goopers if they win in November. That’s how he operates: he’s not a polemicist and he seeks common ground. Consequently, he’s not going to push a lame duck session to do anything.
Frank
You are probably right. But…
Based on the average dumb voter this year, they will vote out any incumbent no matter whose fault it is if the economy is bad. So… if the economy is still bad in 2012, all those Republicans who won in 2010 are likely to lose their jobs in 2012 if the economy doesn’t improve. So, either the GOP will keep destroying our economy and get booted out in 2012. Or they will actually do something for their economy in order to get re-elected.
E.D. Kain
@Violet: Oh it depends on what we’re talking about. I still think that barber regulations are silly, for instance, and that C4C had some unintended consequences. But I’m in favor of more stimulus and have been for some time.
Mnemosyne
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Ah, so the bill I linked to above only existed in an alternate universe that only ABC News and I have access to, so therefore it’s been a summer of total inaction by the House and the president. Gotcha.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@jwb: Not really, though let’s at least acknowledge that, in a world in which the GOP has a Congressional majority, just saying how awful they are is a guarantee that nothing passes. Everything Obama has done in the past tells me that he’s not going to just concede that nothing can pass, and he should just let the country burn for two years. On that, I think he’s right. If a Republican controlled Congress is the only Congress available, he’s going to have to try to work with it.
Of course, he could just decide that he’s going to shut the federal government down for two years and put all federal employees out of work. That would allow him to bash the Republicans to his hearts content. Would that make you happy?
AhabTRuler
@E.D. Kain:
Yeah, and John still thinks that he was right about “the Jane Hamshers of the left,” so you are in safe waters.
handy
@morzer:
Your Bobo quote just goes from bad to abysmal right quick.
I especially love this part:
Yes, quite unlike 1932. People were so happy with their incumbent representatives back then! So unlike when Obama took office.
WereBear
Spoken like someone who’s never had anything more than scissors near their scalp? I believe if you were risking having your hair turned Bozo orange and all you get in compensation is an “oopsie!” you might think about it differently.
jwb
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN): No, but he’s not going to do anything in those two months of a lame duck congress unless he really, truly believes that the existence of the country is at stake. My claim in that sense is very narrow: nothing substantive will come out of the lame duck congress. I believe he’ll try working with the gooper congress once it’s in session, and I believe the gooper congress will pursue an agenda of insanity—even more so than in 1995-96. After that, we’ll see if Obama’s long game is really all it’s cracked up to be. Personally, at that point, I’d bet on Obama, but nothing is certain.
Violet
@E.D. Kain:
I was really kind of joshing you. But your recent posts have definitely been more on the hippie side of the hippie-wingnut continuum.
Did you see my question?
General Stuck
When are the firebaggers gonna form their own party. Past time, and they could start to make their own reality, instead of altering the current one to get through the day.
morzer
@WereBear:
So ED Kain doesn’t sport a glorious orange Mohawk? Sir, you have disillusioned me deeply.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@jwb: So, do you have an alternative to propose, or are you just whining? What do you think Obama can do differently during a lame duck session that will, or even could, lead to better results than what you lay out? The primary stumbling block to getting anything done then isn’t Obama; it’s the Senators that aren’t going to do anything no matter what he does.
FormerSwingVoter
@Just Some Fuckhead:
To be fair, at least we won’t break the world again.
And we’re trying to fix it now. Sure, we seem like assholes to you guys who have been trying to fix it the whole time, but it still counts for something, right?
I guess I’m just saying that your put-down shouldn’t be “And now you’re telling us to fix it” as much as “Where the fuck have you been, assholes?”
Anne Laurie
@morzer:
__
I’m gonna recycle an old sf fan saying:
WereBear
@morzer: Now, I will picture him that way. Thanks!
morzer
@FormerSwingVoter:
When the world’s on fire, does it matter whether the next guy in the bucket chain was once a smoker?
AhabTRuler
@morzer:
Anne Laurie
@morzer: From what I see among the neocons and their Media Village courtiers, “Risk” is a more dangerous gateway drug than marijuana could ever dream of being.
morzer
@Anne Laurie:
Madam, are you hinting that ED Kain does not, in fact, possess the chiselled physique of a young demigod by Praxiteles? I must warn you, these brutal disillusionments wreak havoc on my cognitive and perceptual faculties. I implore you to relent.
jwb
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN): Insofar as I’m whining, I’m whining about his economic team, which I think has adopted a position much too far to the right and much to the detriment of the Dems as the economic situation is the leading cause of the Dems problems right now. Otherwise, I was just predicting what will happen after the election, since some folks seem to believe the Dems will do something after the election even if they lose, whereas I think it’s fairly obvious that absolutely nothing will happen if they lose. Which is a strong argument in favor of working our collective asses off to make sure they don’t lose.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
It’s a good thing it’s impossible to get chemical burns from hair dye, or else ED would really look like an idiot insisting that there’s no need for people to be trained in how to safely apply those products to another person. And thank FSM that insecticide-resistant lice are only a myth, because otherwise he might have to think that maybe, just maybe, requiring barbers to clean their brushes and combs after every customer might be a good idea.
morzer
@Anne Laurie:
I will tell you, Madam, I have played Risk without feeling the faintest urge to invade Iraq or triple the deficit. Hell, I’ve even played Medieval II Total War without any noticeable ill-effects, other than wearing the imperial purple and demanding that the cat perform proskynesis.
Just Some Fuckhead
@FormerSwingVoter: What’s so hard about exhibiting a little shame, maybe apologizing and then sitting down and shutting the fuck up?
morzer
@Just Some Fuckhead:
It’s kind of hard to fix the world by sitting silently on your ass. Just sayin’.
NB Militant Buddhists need not denounce me. I’ve heard that tune before.
Mnemosyne
@That’s Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN):
That really is the root of every problem we have right now. If every bill that had been passed by the House this year had gone straight to the president for signature, this administration would have outdone FDR. But everything has to go through the goddamned Senate, and they’re dragging their feet.
There were 290 House bills waiting for approval by the Senate in February of this year, and it’s only gotten worse since then.
Of course, it’s all Obama’s fault, because he didn’t turn green, rip his shirt off, and storm into the Senate knocking heads together until they voted.
handy
@morzer:
It does if he started the fire when he mindlessly flicked his match into the dry brush.
General Stuck
@FormerSwingVoter: You don’t have to explain anything to fuckhead, nor apologize. He wouldn’t know a real democrat if one bit him on the ass, complete political psycho.
Anne Laurie
@morzer: Well, it’s not strong-minded individuals like you that we have to worry about. It’s the weak-willed, easily influenced, socially backwards, slightly developmently-delayed Risk players we have to worry about. You know — people like David ‘Bobo’ Brooks and his AIPAC
puppetmasterscocktail-party colleagues.Just Some Fuckhead
@General Stuck: Awesome. Republican PUMA Stuck weighs in to lay down the law.
morzer
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Illegal contact. Five yard penalty. Still fourth down.
jwb
@Just Some Fuckhead: Very weak tea. Somehow, I feel your heart just isn’t in it tonight.
FormerSwingVoter
@Just Some Fuckhead: The realization that sitting down and shutting up and blindly accepting what we’re told led to these problems in the first place might have something to do with it.
Tell you what: you can give us shit for our past misdeeds all you want, and we’ll try not to swear at you too much for being such an asshole while we both fight against the actual opposition. Deal?
Mark S.
Jesus Christ, I didn’t realize it was that bad, and if you follow the link to The Hill, you find it’s up to 372. I was just skimming them and noticed:
Thank God the Senate’s taking its sweet ass time on naming some mother fucking Post Offices. Who knows, those guys might’ve been communists. World’s Greatest Deliberative Body. Ever.
ETA: That was a reply to Mnemosyne at 84.
Just Some Fuckhead
@jwb: You weren’t here for Stuck’s PUMA speech? Stuck, why don’t you recap it for everyone or post a link?
General Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Thanks for confirming my diagnoses. I would ask what a republican PUMA was, but that would waste my time.
morzer
@General Stuck:
Republican Previously Unsuspected Master of Arts?
arguingwithsignposts
we are not drifting back into unregulated cosmetology waters, are we? What’s next, the “A” word?
FormerSwingVoter
@General Stuck:
I don’t need to explain anything to fuckhead himself – but it’s not a bad thing to realize and acknowledge that I (and people like me) have some responsibility for the current state of affairs.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Mark S.: I heard it’s gotten close to a thousand.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: Ouch!
But really, no need for training or licensing when applying dangerous chemicals to someone’s skin. That would just give a trained person an unfair market advantage!
Just Some Fuckhead
@FormerSwingVoter: Stuck, too.
morzer
@FormerSwingVoter:
If you feel the need to be lashed, I am sure Matoko_chan has a cat o’nine tails around somewhere….
jwb
@Just Some Fuckhead: Best I can recall, I showed up summer of 2008, certainly after the epic primary battle. Still, I thought that particular shot lacked your usual zing.
jwb
@arguingwithsignposts: Maybe you need to post some kitteh pix?
Mnemosyne
@arguingwithsignposts:
It wouldn’t be Balloon Juice if we couldn’t keep tweaking people for the stupid shit they say. Especially when they double down on being wrong. :-)
Just Some Fuckhead
@jwb: Did you catch Stuck’s PUMA speech or not?
jwb
@Just Some Fuckhead: Sorry for being dense. I don’t recall seeing it.
Just Some Fuckhead
@jwb: Well, there ya go.
Mark S.
@Just Some Fuckhead:
If it’s really important you could always provide a link.
jwb
@morzer: Was Matoko_chan banned? I haven’t seen her around spouting off that nonsense about genetics and IQ scores for ages.
cleek
@Mnemosyne:
and it’s our fault that message isn’t getting out, i suppose. though somehow, the GOP manages to get their message out.
yeah yeah, Fox News, bias, working the refs, blah blah blah. guess what? that’s the fucking environment these days. that’s the game. that’s what it’s about. and the Dems are unable to handle it.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Mark S.: It’s Stuck so it’s not really important.
morzer
@jwb:
I think she might be curled up in a corner digesting a very large helping of boysenberry pie. Or maybe she finally became a secret agent ninja with mutant superpowers… I imagine Annie or DougJ could tell you if she was banned, since Cole is still slaughtering his friends on XBox (allegedly).
Just Some Fuckhead
@cleek: It’s all someone else’s fault. Way cool superman basketball player is powerless against everyone but the presumptive nominee for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
General Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Come firebagger walk with me down on the beach.
Jared
@Mnemosyne:
Ahem, that should be “Senate Rejects Hussein’s Massive Muslim Communist Spending Package”
Also, this graph should be in every advert from here til November. Red line, blue line, which do you want more of?
Nick
@Violet:
no, no they wouldn’t. Trust me, they wouldn’t.
Anyway it doesn’t matter, because all the Democrats are are a loose coalition of single issue activists, so they’ll never have a united message on anything. They never have, even in their heyday, you had people like William King dissing the New Deal, while Huey Long said it wasn’t good enough, and of course half the party opposed civil rights, and like a third of it voted for Reagan. The difference then is that the media was more willing to present a true opposition point of view and not defend Republicans by only talking to conservative Democrats.
Mnemosyne
@cleek:
I never said that it was your fault, but you are awfully quick to blame the victims and not the perps here.
To take it to an extreme, I guess the problem in Rwanda was that the Tutsis were unable to handle the media environment, so they deserved what they got.
We don’t have a “media environment.” We have a right-wing propaganda machine. The fact that you’re actually buying into the right-wing propaganda and repeating the meme that Obama and the House have done absolutely nothing to try and improve the economy just proves how powerful it is, since you ostensibly realize it’s right-wing propaganda but still believe all of the bullshit they feed you.
CalD
That bump in the summer was the census bureau hiring 200,000 temporary workers. The private sector is still adding jobs at about the same rate as it was during that period. Hiring tends to lag the end of a recession by a few months though, so you wouldn’t expect it to spike again immediately even if we knew it was over.
General Stuck
@FormerSwingVoter: You can acknowledge what you were if you want, but in the here and now, you are light years ahead of the fuckheads of the world, who are really no different than the nihilistic tea tards when you swap around the ideological poles. If it ain’t just the way they want it, burn the motherfucker down.
jwb
@cleek: “yeah yeah, Fox News, bias, working the refs, blah blah blah. guess what? that’s the fucking environment these days. that’s the game. that’s what it’s about. and the Dems are unable to handle it.”
We don’t know that actually. I’m not disagreeing with the sentiment (which I’m largely sympathetic to), and the Dems are certainly getting trashed routinely in the daily cycle and will most likely get hit hard in November. But the real question is what happens in 2012, and can we get through to 2012? It will really only be after the 2012 election that we can assess whether Obama’s strategy has worked. (That’s what’s meant by the long game—accepting tactical losses for strategic gain.)
Nick
@cleek:
punishing the Dems for not being able to win in this environment is like punishing a cripple for not swimming in the ocean.
Here’s a good question, what are YOU doing to challenge the environment?
Just Some Fuckhead
@General Stuck: Left and right, it’s all the same.
morzer
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Remind me never to drive on the same freeway with you.
jwb
@Nick: On the other hand, if this is the media environment we have, the Dems should really be working double hard to build up alternative media to get their message out. I haven’t seen that they are put many resources in that direction—though perhaps you know more than I do.
One of the curious aspects of Obama’s first year in office was the way OfA was allowed to whither. They tried to resurrect it this year, but it has seemed completely ineffectual so far.
handy
@Nick:
The Dems didn’t have problems winning two years ago in virtually the same environment.
jwb
@Just Some Fuckhead: See what I mean about the missing zing.
Just Some Fuckhead
@morzer: You mean Stuck, of course.
Just Some Fuckhead
@handy: Don’t take Nick seriously. He’s just here to remind us that all is futile, nothing is possible, hopelessness abounds.
morzer
@Just Some Fuckhead:
So you don’t know left from right, and you’ve just failed basic reading comprehension. It’s all going a bit pear-shaped for you this evening, isn’t it?
General Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Lame, you lost your mojo.
Nick
@jwb:
Democrats have attempted to take to social media networks like Facebook and Twitter to reach supporters, they use it pretty damn often. The comment threads are sometimes in the thousands. I’m pretty sure the President himself changes his statues a half dozen times a day. I follow Dems like Jared Polis, Claire McCaskill and Jim Himes on Twitter and they often post very good defenses of their votes.
It just isn’t working because for whatever reason, conservative radio and Fox News is more powerful…probably because their followers are willing to spread their lies while the Dems followers just read the status or tweet and move on. They don’t fee the need to spread their message.
But the White House can’t set up a television network or radio show. That’s going to involve us. This week I very nearly lost my job because I told my editor I would not write an article on the “ground zero mosque” since it does not pertain to anywhere in our readership (we don’t cover Manhattan). He wanted me to write about a protest held by our local Dem Congressman’s Republican rival because “people in this area feel strongly about it” and I said “then you write about it. I’m not. The ‘mosque’ isn’t here.” The truth was he wanted to run ads in our publication and offered more money if we covered his protests.
I did my part to take on the conservative media narrative…and YOU?
Just Some Fuckhead
@morzer: Stuck is the one that made the point that left and right are the same. I was merely highlighting it.
morzer
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Pass interference. Ten yard penalty. Second down.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Nick:
Whoa, they’re already building Obama statues?
Mnemosyne
@handy:
Nine percent unemployment and screaming teatards getting 24/7 coverage is the same environment?
Nick
@handy:
You think the environment was the SAME? Are you fucking kidding?
Also, they won 52.5% of the vote in the worse economic downturn in 65 years and best campaign maybe ever run by a Democratic presidential nominee. Reagan did better with a 53% approval rating.
I’m not impressed.
General Stuck
@morzer: I think that was a recovered fumble. Yes, I’m sure it was.
Just Some Fuckhead
Nick is much more impressed by Reagan.
handy
@Mnemosyne:
You’re right, when the wingnuts got their ass handed to them, “nobody could have predicted…”
Nick
@handy:
Actually, I did sorta predict this. I did say on another blog in a thread a week before election day that if Obama wins, Congress is gone in 2010 because no matter what he does, he’s going to be endlessly demonized for it. The media would do a 180 and give the rabid right wing complete control over the message and ignore the Democrats or demonize them if they fight back, because all they want is a horserace, and as a former ABC Nightly News anchor said, supposedly jokingly, on election night, off the air; “The best thing for all of our careers is if we’re sitting here four years from now talking about how much Obama has failed. What a story that would be!”
and I figured whatever he does accomplish would be too little to excite the merry band of lefty dreamers and he would be left standing alone, with no one feeling the need to back him up, even when he does fight and stand up for whats right (see mosquegate)
Jared
@jwb:
OFA was involved in the healthcare fight from start to finish.
Mnemosyne
@handy:
Changing your story, are you? I thought the issue was that the environment today and the environment two years ago were virtually identical.
Svensker
@Just Some Fuckhead:
If the only people allowed to speak are the ones who have always been right and never changed their minds, the world would be a pretty quiet place.
But then one assumes that you have probably always been right about everything.
Also, too, if you want people who changed their minds to shut up, why do you hang out at Cole’s place? Seems kinda basackwards dunnit?
Corner Stone
@Mark S.:
This is also analogous to when someone tells you, “But he votes with the Dems 85% of the time! Which would you rather have??”
Yeah, he votes for the fucking post office namings. Then tosses your shit in the dirt when it counts.
jwb
@Nick: Facebook and Twitter. Wheeeee. I’m sure that will be effective. Well, maybe if you want to organize a flash mob.
Seriously, if that’s where they are putting their energies, and this is what you are going to hold up as an example of the Dems’ media strategy, then we are truly and utterly fucked.
ETA: I do appreciate what you risked at your job. That was probably more effective than all the twitter and facebook updates of our Dem politicians combined.
Corner Stone
“Nothing can be done!”
wasabi gasp
The best scene from Planet of the Apes is when they found the Statue of Liberty buried to the bosom in tweets.
Nick
@jwb:
well ok genius, what do you think would be more effective when television and radio ignores you? C’mon really, you seem heavy on criticism, a little light on solutions.
I vote for riots of torch wielding mobs crashing through Fox News headquarters windows demanding they stop shilling for the people who turned our country into what it is, but hey, I know that requires taking time off from saying vague things on blogs.
Oh I know, yell louder, eventually the media owners getting paid off by corporations to shill for them will begin to pay attention, because they’re so scared of mouthy liberals. Look how they cover at Alan fucking Grayson and Anthony Weiner. They’re on television all the time, if by all the time you mean every few fucking months when some right winger is there to yell louder than them.
morzer
@General Stuck:
After reviewing the play, the ruling on the field stands. Second down!
jwb
@Corner Stone: I was wondering when you’d show up and sound the charge.
Corner Stone
@Nick:
I wouldn’t trust you further than I can punt a bowling ball.
Tell us more Nick. Please, tell us all more about how nothing can be done.
jwb
@Nick: I have never claimed commenting on blogs as politically effective activity. In fact, I have often ridiculed it. Personally, I like calling my representative and senators.
E.D. Kain
@jwb: I don’t think that’s a fair characterization of my post at all. I was quite explicitly explaining why I’m not a conservative despite my admiration for people like Daniel Larison. My belief that we are in a balance sheet recession and belief that public spending can help get us out I’ve had for a while now (have posted about it here previously, actually). This doesn’t change my belief that stimulus also creates moral hazard, but nor does it diminish the need for stimulus.
Corner Stone
@jwb: I’ve been playing Super Mario Bro Galaxy 2 on Wii with my son.
Much more important than arguing with idiots like Nick, Stuck or Mnemosyne.
Nick
@Corner Stone: I will, once you tell us more about how something can be done.
Just Some Fuckhead
Nick, only rightwingers go on and on and on and on about the media like this. Do you have something you’d like to confess?
handy
@Mnemosyne:
I never made the claim that Democrats had some Sisyphean task of overcoming an environment they have never faced before. So, no, I haven’t changed my story.
E.D. Kain
@Violet: Honestly, I figured y’all had had enough of my long-winded posts. I mean, at least a lot of people had expressed that. I can post it here as well.
E.D. Kain
@Violet: Also – I didn’t know if I’d have time to engage in the comments and I know that drives y’all crazy. Better to not post if that’s the case.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
You might want to scroll down to DougJ’s post since you seem to be a little confused about which group is claiming that nothing can be done and we’re all doomed and should give up now and let the Republicans take over. Hint: it ain’t mine.
morzer
@E.D. Kain:
Mr Kain, any comment on the allegations about skinny-dipping and a ferocious orange Mohawk?
Nick
@jwb:
I like it too, but even Mr. liberal Anthony Weiner, whom I know pretty well, admitted that 75% of the calls to his office were against the Fox News mosque and a majority of calls to his office were against the healthcare bill even when it HAD a public option. (He was very proud to admit he was advocating for one “despite the opinion of his district” because “it’s the right thing for America”)
I’m totally behind the idea of getting every left winger to call his or her Senator/Congressman’s office in support of something, or opposition to stuff, but in case you haven’t noticed, that’s what Dems are using Facebook and Twitter to do.
Mnemosyne
@handy:
You claimed that the environment now is exactly like it was in 2008. I pointed out two ways in which it is not. You then tried to change the subject without continuing your claim that the environment right now is exactly like it was in 2008. That’s changing your story.
E.D. Kain
@morzer: I will not respond to such baseless accusations!
Nick
@handy:
but you did say “nobody could have predicted” they’d face the media backlash they did, so that would imply you do think the environment has changed.
Just Some Fuckhead
@E.D. Kain: No, you were right. We’ve had enough. Keep ’em short and don’t worry about commenting. God bless.
Corner Stone
@Nick:
You know what’s funny you clown? Obama had an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams the other day and you know what he said when asked about his “jobs” for the rest of his term?
Debt and deficit.
That was the “progressive” or left or WTF ever you want to call it message that was “ignored” by your pals in the media.
A completely horseshit answer.
handy
@Mnemosyne:
Well I did see DougJ post about Life On Mars. And one particularly famous Martian‘s ethos seems rather appropriate for this coming election season: when you see an obstacle in your path, blow it up. Sure beats hoping for the best and expecting the worst, I’d say.
morzer
@E.D. Kain:
Notorious liberal blogger ED Kain officially denied skinny-dipping while adorned by a ferocious orange mohawk. Kain has so far refused requests for a debate on the subject, citing security concerns after headless mohawks were found in the deserts of Arizona.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: I’m not confused at all. The commentariat here repeatedly tells us all that the most powerful man in the world can’t effect change and only his “econ team” or his “admin” have let him down in some way.
What could he do? What do you expect him to do? What could be done? Blue dogs! Republicans! Smurfs!
Schnarfff!!
arguingwithsignposts
@E.D. Kain: Why the “More” tag is your friend.
handy
@Nick:
Nick, you cheeky fellow.
jwb
@E.D. Kain: Let’s just say the tone of your post on your other site was quite different than what you are posting here, which is why I presume you chose to post over there. That’s fine. We’re all somewhat different people depending on the context. And I can easily imagine that the commentariat here would have made it difficult to say what you wanted to say. Which was sort of my point.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone: Everyone has let him down, including you and me. It’s the rest of the world that is all fucked up, see? He cannot fail, he can only be failed.
Nick
@Corner Stone:
Debt and deficit.
Oh he did, did he?
I’m sorry, where did he talk about the debt and deficit?
You may want to, you know, NOT LIE to a fucking journalist because you make accusations. I’m pretty sure, in case i missed it, he didn’t mention the debt or deficit once in the entire fucking interview.
Oh, but look what he did do….
CALLED OUT REPUBLICANS
General Stuck
@Corner Stone: You need to read the Krugman link in the post before spouting off your big mouth. Obama is proposing a new stimulus, and your bullshit about people on the this blog claiming nothing can be done is getting boorish, even for you. Maybe you, nobody special, and fuckhead can get a room and jerk each other off to your mutual Obamafail. Instead of smearing your tired stinking feces all over this blog.
Nick
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Well yes. when you flat out lie about what he said, and complain he won’t say what he is actually saying, yes, you are failing him.
Now you and Corner go play in the sandbox, the grown ups are talking about adult things.
jwb
@Nick: “but in case you haven’t noticed, that’s what Dems are using Facebook and Twitter to do.” And as you just pointed out, it hasn’t proved very effective. The point is that Twitter and Facebook aren’t going to solve the Dems media problem any more than the mainstream media are. And like I said, I thought OfA held great promise, but they let it go to seed and they haven’t been successful in resurrecting it. I don’t know if that’s because they haven’t pumped the money back into it, because they don’t have the money to pump back into it, or because they abused it so badly that no pays attention to it any more.
General Stuck
@Nick: He won’t acknowledge his lies, I’m still waiting for a link to a single instance he has approved of or praised Obama that he claimed in a prior thread. All lies, damned ones too.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Nick: I didn’t actually lie about him, did I? You are failing him now by being less than worthy.
Nick
@jwb:
It’s because everything they tried and successfully used in the campaign has failed to work after.
A major part of that is that a lot of their voters showed to vote for Obama and then disappeared. because once he won, their interest for politics was instantly gone. They showed up for him, not his agenda.
Violet
@E.D. Kain:
It’s your post and it’s up to you. I just found it kind of strange. You posted a long post here on this blog about why you no longer consider yourself a conservative. The post got a lot of comments here and apparently drew a lot of attention elsewhere in the blogosphere. Various people posted responses to your post. And then, rather than address those responses here, where you made the initial post, you posted at the League to reply. Had jwb not linked to it last night, I wouldn’t have known it existed, as I’m only an occasional visitor to the LOOG. It seems an odd choice as to where to post your response, although I take your additional point that you felt you might not be available for comments here and that that could be an issue.
You should do whatever you think is right for you, but I’m now sort of curious as to what your thinking is regarding dividing your posts between here and the LOOG, and anywhere else you may post that I’m not aware. Do you have a strategy or methodology?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Nick: What agenda, clown? This president is easily the most agenda-less president since Ford.
jwb
@Nick: No, it’s because they didn’t fucking use the organization for anything but a source to spam people’s email boxes for a year after the election.
Nick
@General Stuck: Well at the very least, he won’t be coming up to this thread…until he finds the transcript of some random interview where he did talk about the deficit and debt…I’m sure he’ll find one, he was asked about it, and the President does answer questions he’s asked, rather than punch a cardboard cutout of Michele Bachmann on live TV.
Just Some Fuckhead
@jwb: No doubt it will become the most powerful force on earth again come election 2012.
Nick
@jwb:
they did that DURING the campaign too? What was the fucking difference?
i don’t really understand what you’re saying, how do we reach out to people who are oblivious to what’s going on without “annoying” them with spam? First you’re complaining they’re not getting out supporters to do things, and then you’re complaining they’re bothering them too much.
General Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
The sad part is, I think you really believe this. I would list those agenda driven accomplishments, but it would be totally lost on you and more waste of time.
E.D. Kain
@Violet: Honestly I’m not sure. I’m not used to posting so many different places! But that’s a very good point I hadn’t thought much about, so I’ll at least link. Maybe crosspost.
Nick
@Just Some Fuckhead: Now you lie.
I was, of course, talking about the PARTY’S agenda, which is the one he ran on. the one put forward at the Democratic Convention in Denver.
jwb
@Jared: They never called me. They never asked me to volunteer. I don’t recall that they organized any national rallies for health care to counter the teabagger nonsense. If by being involved you mean they sent me a zillion email messages, which didn’t size properly on my iPhone or browser and which I promptly deleted, well then, yes, OfA was involved.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Nick: lolz, gotcha:
Nick
@jwb:
those e-mails you deleted, were calls to volunteer and go to rallies to counter the teabagger nonsense. I went to about four between August 2009 and February 2010. They had tepid turnout. The largest one i went to was a few weeks before the bill had passed, after the public option was dead. About 1500 people walked cross the Brooklyn Bridge. I went to one that pushed for single payer…8 people showed up.
Corner Stone
@Nick: HEY! You fucking asshole! You may want to read this a little you fucking lying piece of shit:
Nick is a fucking scumbag
Violet
@E.D. Kain:
I haven’t read your post at the LOOG, although I have it open in a tab, so I’ll read it eventually. I don’t know if it’s a good fit for here or not. But given your “coming out party” as non-conservative happened here, I think some people might be interested in knowing it created a bit of a stir in the conservative blogosphere and that you replied. Perhaps a short post with a link explaining what it is? I don’t know… It’s obviously up to you.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Nick: So instead of a clear failure of leadership, yer blaming a failure to be led?
Corner Stone
@Nick: Hey asshole. Not random, you fucking punk bitch.
jwb
@Nick: It’s how you contact them and what you ask them to do that matters. But they spent a year not doing anything except sending those stupid spam emails, which only taught their supporters to ignore them. They only really started mobilizing and asking people for concrete action last fall, after which the teabaggers already had them outflanked. The summer before when the teabaggers burst on the scene I was desperate to find any Democratic organization that was doing anything—I searched and searched and came up empty.
Mnemosyne
@jwb:
Dude, those invitations to volunteer that you say you never got were in those e-mails you deleted without looking at them. I know, because I was getting the same e-mails. I also got tons of requests to show up at local town halls to counter the teatards via e-mail.
Corner Stone
@Nick:
HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAAHAAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAAH!
Nick
jwb
@Just Some Fuckhead: “This president is easily the most agenda-less president since Ford.” Unicorns are over there.
morzer
@Nick:
youtube.com/watch?v=8v13kOAfaMM
Debt and deficit do occur as priorities here at around the 16 second mark.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: Obama is not going to propose anything close to a new “stimulus”. If reports are to be believed he will propose new TAX CUTS.
Fuck you jackass.
Jared
@jwb:
The OFA organized 1,000,000 calls to congress during the healthcare fight. A few more might have been nice, but unfortunately a bunch of people deleted the emails, then showed up later to complain that the OFA isn’t doing anything.
Nick
@jwb:
Then how do you contact them? e-mail bombs seem to work for the right wing. That’s how teabaggers get info, through endless spam e-mails.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: It’s easy for you Stuck. You’ve got a trail of used up knee pads to prove your undying fealty.
My “approval” is when I have said Obama did the right thing, like in his initial reaction to the BP Gulf of Mexico accident.
I clearly stated he should not be involved in that and he was doing the right thing.
I also thought Obama staying out of the whole Mosque issue was correct.
I don’t slobber like you do, so I understand why you have a hard time distinguishing.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@jwb:
Which part of his economics team? The one that advocated for a much larger stimulus package? Note that that never lost the debate within the administration as far as the economic merits. It lost purely as a matter of political tactics. Whether we would have been better off had that aimed higher, we’ll never know. For every plausible argument I see that they could have gotten more by asking for more, I see one that, by aiming higher, they may well have ended up with nothing, and two that it wouldn’t have made much difference.
Do you mean the bank bailouts? Here I think we’re going to have to disagree. I think the abyss we were staring into 18 months ago was so frightening that we had to do pretty much what we did. Saving the financial system from collapse was guaranteed to have crappy optics, but how much better do you think the Democrats’ chances this fall would be if we had 15-25% unemployment, rather than 10%? Yes, that’s where a complete financial meltdown would have left us.
Really, once those two things were done, the die was pretty much cast. By June of last year, it was already the case that getting anything at all through the Senate would be a 6-12 month battle. They went with health care, and largely got it through. I suspect that they wouldn’t have succeeded with another stimulus at all.
It’s not that I don’t think that the administration hasn’t made any mistakes, but they clearly have. However, with regards to the economic situation, I don’t think that the mistakes they have made have been terribly costly, because other parties were always there to make sure that a bad outcome would have been obtained anyway. Has we had majority rule in the Senate, then Obama’s mistakes might have been more consequential, but we don’t. In the real world, Evan Bayh’s fuck ups took precedence over Obama’s.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone: So he mentioned the deficit and debt in an answer, but that is hardly all he talked about numbnut, you just focused your beady little firebagger eyes on one blurb for evidence of your bullshit meme that Obama doesn’t care about creating jobs and is doing nothing. Aside from the new stimulus he is announcing next week, there is this from Nick’s quote above from that interview.
But he mentioned the debt once, for pol cover against the wingnuts, and you hold it up like the silver bullet of Obama’s real intention. Shut your pie hole clown, you are part of the problem, not the solution.
Violet
@Nick:
One of the things I heard a lot about during the campaign was how Obama had a lot of grassroots volunteers and allowed them a lot of freedom. The whole thing had a very big bottom-up feel and there wasn’t as much of a top down approach. Getting an email asking for you to show up to a rally is different. It’s a top down style. Perhaps that was part of the problem.
Also, when you work on a campaign, there are a lot of jobs, from a few hours of phonebanking to a full time job. There are offices where you can go and meet other like-minded people and work on things. There’s a sense of community and shared purpose.
But once the campaign is over, the offices shut down, people scatter. When you combine the absence of a gathering place (like a campaign office) with the different top-down approach, it may not be as attractive to people.
I realize it’s difficult to maintain a bottom-up approach when you’re dealing with policy and governing, but I was surprised they didn’t think that through and have a few key people tasked with trying to keep that sort of thing going. I know there was tons of enthusiasm after the election and people wanted to get involved, even people who had never been inspired to get involved wanted to do something. At the time there were complaints that there was nothing for them to do or that it was so vague and confusing that people drifted away.
I think OFA could have done a better job. They didn’t effectively harness the huge amount of energy and interest they had.
Nick
@Just Some Fuckhead:
you know, when you reach out to people and they ignore what they’re saying because they’re tired of being spammed and their message isn’t downloading fast enough on your IPhone, that doesn’t strike me as wanted to be led.
Corner Stone
@jwb: Can I get mine in fuchsia?
It’s all I really care about. Ponies. Unicorns. Etc.
morzer
On the subject of a “second stimulus”:
dailyfinance.com/story/taxes/obama-second-stimulus/19619953/
No second stimulus, according to the White House spokesperson.
Mnemosyne
@morzer:
Of course, that wasn’t his first comment on debt and deficit in that interview — that was the follow-up. Here’s his first comment, from the transcript:
That doesn’t sound to me like the primary focus is on debt and deficit, but I don’t have Corner Stone’s magical mind-reading powers.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: God dammit Stuck. Even a bone ignorant moron like you has to at some point understand the reality of things. Don’t you?
General Stuck
@Corner Stone: Weak tea dude, none of it on anything he has done, just what he didn’t do/
@Corner Stone: What fucking reports, the ones dreamed up in your head. I doubt it will be big enough to satisfy your sorry ass, but he is doing things, so you lie, as always.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: Yeah. You got me.
That’s a complete refudiation.
jwb
@Mnemosyne: I’ve already mentioned that I recognize that OfA is back up and running, and I’ve done some things on its behalf. But why weren’t they doing this from the get go? That’s where, I think, they lost it, especially summer 2009.
morzer
@Mnemosyne:
Well, I think Obama’s been fairly consistent on wanting to make the public finances sound, so I am not tremendously worried overall, although Alan Simpson seems to be deranged. That said, it’s not true to claim, as some have on here, that debt and deficits didn’t get a mention. Whether that makes them the only game in town is another matter. Likewise, it might well be that they just don’t want to call a second stimulus a stimulus because of the politics of it all.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Nick: I’m gonna try that at work and see how far it gets me. My people are deleting their emails and not doing what I tell them!
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: I guess the answer is “No, Stuck will never have enough working brain cells to understand much of anything.”
jwb
@Jared: And I was one of the ones who called.
morzer
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I think that gets you to Sarah Palin’s personal privacy initiative for corrupt governers.
Nick
@Mnemosyne:
I’m not sure why this isn’t a progressive answers. In the short term the economy is a priority at the expense of the deficit, but long term the deficit needs to be brought under control.
If the economy is going to start growing, a huge deficit would lead to inflation. So yeah, once we do get the economy growing strongly again, we are going to have to deal with the deficit.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone: You’re are a nihilistic political psychopath like fuckhead, nothing you have ever said on this blog has had even a grain of accurate knowledge of politics in this country and how they work. Your hatred is for Obama, and has been since way before he became president. You are a firebagger to the core, and that is all you are.
jwb
@Nick: I’m pretty sure Fox ginning things up helps.
morzer
@General Stuck:
Would it be fair to say that you feel strongly about this?
Nick
@morzer:
my response to Corner was “in case I missed it, I didn’t see it mentioned” but my point was he didn’t talk about deficit and debts when asked about job creation, he talked about it when asked about his own job.
And controlling the deficit, whether you think so or like it, is part of his job, even if he, as he said he would, calls it a long term project lower in priority.
jwb
@Nick: That’s Krugman’s position, no? That seems to be Obama’s position, though his team seems to have trouble coming out and saying it. I’m sure it’s the imaginary bond vigilantes.
Mnemosyne
@morzer:
Since the Reuters story says that the spokeswoman talked specifically about investing in infrastructure and energy as major components of the proposed plan, I think that may be it — it’s going to be stimulus without the word “stimulus” attached to it. I don’t know that it’s going to get through the Senate even if they call it something else, but it’s worth a try.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: Take the ball sack out of your mouth for a change man.
You can try gargling something else for a bit.
Just Some Fuckhead
Now you’ve gone and upset Stuck, CS. Apologize and give him back his Obama action figure.
Nick
@jwb:
which is my general point. Liberals don’t have a Fox, and until they do, they will always be outworked, always, and the only time Democrats stand a chance at winning is in exception circumstances like a near economic Armageddon in 2008 or a Republican president with record low approval ratings in 2006.
There was no reason with the environment as it was, a Democratic Presidential candidate like Obama couldn’t win 60% of the vote. I suspect had he been white, he might have done a little better, perhaps winning Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri and West Virginia, but still.
morzer
@Nick:
Either you didn’t read the transcript, or you were bluffing. Unimpressive either way.
That's Master of Accountancy to You, Pal (JMN)
@Violet:
I’m not entirely sure how one organizes a bottom up organization from the top. No one at the business school was ever able to provide a coherent answer when I asked that question.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Nick: You actually screwed the pooch pretty hard on that one. I’m embarrassed for ya, much like the night you stepped in it with the Jews Control The Media thing.
Corner Stone
@Nick: You fucking lying asshole. Here’s my quoted post:
“when asked about his “jobs” for the rest of his term?”
And then you’re lying asshole self said:
That’s pretty clear you piece of shit.
General Stuck
@morzer: Corner Stone is not the only one, and I suppose after reading the umpteenth idiotic “nothing can be done” it was time to vent. There will be a lot more of it, for the foreseeable future. These fuckers are worse than the wingnuts imo, who at least have picked a side. albeit an insane one, for a cause equally insane. Firebaggers just burn shit down, and distract from fighting the real enemy, the wingnuts.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead: Waaaaa…where is my pony??
Nick
@jwb:
Yes it is, and Obama has repeatedly said it, but like I’ve said, no one is willing to take Obama’s message and run with it, either because like Corner and Fuckhead, they just pretend he’s not saying it at all, or like those on the professional left, he’s not doing it while calling Republicans nasty names, which to them implies its some secretly coded sell out.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
I realize that you wanted Obama to join Dick Cheney in declaring that deficits don’t matter, but they do. They’re not as important at the moment, but they do actually matter.
For rational people, I Googled up an interesting article from 2004 called “What Killed Off the GOP Deficit Hawks?”
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: The real enemy is anyone who damages the liberal ideology, the liberal brand or the liberal ideals.
Fuck you.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone: @Just Some Fuckhead:
Cool, the dynamic duo sewer trout once again demonstrate their mutual reach around.
morzer
@General Stuck:
I was just teasing you gently, General. You don’t need to convince me of your point.
morzer
@General Stuck:
I was just teasing you gently, General. You don’t need to convince me of your point.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: Umm, I’m sorry but 2004 is nothing like right now. We’re about to go down on the mat, maybe for a final count. And people are acting like “the deficit” matters one little tiny itty bitty bit at this point.
It does not.
We have to push government funds into the system. Hard, fast and for a long fucking time.
Don’t try that bullshit here.
Nick
@Violet:
but again, i don’t see the big difference between the campaign and after it. During the campaign, i got e-mails flooded into my inbox asking me to come volunteer, make phone calls, hand out palmcards, knock on doors, join parties and go to rallies. Got the same thing after. The only difference is it went from being about Obama to being about stimulus, energy, healthcare, Sotomayor, Kagen, FinReg, immigration, etc.
i just think once the Obama campaign was over, there was no uniting factor in the movement. He WAS the uniting factor. Now it’s about policy, and now you have 70 million different policy opinions running around. You can’t get a bottom up approach when everyone is on a different page politically. 70 million people voted for Obama, that doesn’t mean 70 million people think we need a carbon tax, or let the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire, or pass HCR.
ruemara
@morzer:
You should google how much from the first stimulus is still unspent.
Corner Stone
@Nick: God you’re a useless douchebag.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
LMAOROTF – Corner Stone – keeper of the liberal brand or liberal ideals. I guess that’s where the Task Farce Rangering comes in. Funny Firebagger.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
For one thing, the deficit was a hell of a lot lower then than it is right now since our Excellent Iraq Adventure wasn’t quite in the meat grinder phase yet where it was putting us an extra trillion into debt.
So if the deficit doesn’t matter one bit, why raise taxes on the rich? Why not leave their tax rates low along with everyone else’s and just finance everything through debt like we did with Iraq and Afghanistan?
Bob Loblaw
@Mnemosyne:
No, they really don’t. Not if the words ‘trade’ or ‘current account’ aren’t in front of them.
You can repeal the Bush tax cuts on the top 3-5% of income earners and never fucking worry about your precious fiscal deficit again for the next decade.
Even reorienting military and health care spending isn’t strictly important as a budgetary consideration, but more from a misallocation of productive capital. The US, as the issuer of the global reserve currency, can pretty much run a fiscal deficit under 3% of gdp from now until the end of time if it wants to. There are no scary bond vigilantes waiting in the bushes. The question should be simply a matter of what that money is used to buy instead…
morzer
@ruemara:
Why? It won’t affect the basic point, which is that the White House says no second stimulus. As I said in another post, this may be because they prefer not to use the word for political reasons. Either way, their official position is the one I stated.
Mnemosyne
@Bob Loblaw:
But you said deficits don’t matter anyway, so what’s your rationale for raising taxes on the rich? Why take deficit reduction steps like letting the tax cuts expire if the deficit doesn’t matter?
Sorry, but I think you and CS are both talking out of your asses. You know that the deficit and the debt do, in fact, matter. If it didn’t matter, you would be calling for the Bush tax cuts to be extended for everyone, not just the middle class.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: You are starting to rival Stuck as the stupidest moron on this blog.
Are you really making the argument that the top 1% and the rest of society have the same obligations and responsibility?
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
Why? WHY?
Why would anyone say that this is an equivalent argument? You’re an idiot.
General Stuck
@Mnemosyne: We pay 400 billion a year in interest on the debt. I guess that doesn’t matter, and may not even exist in the firebagger world of money trees and golden goose eggs.
Nick
@Bob Loblaw:
Yes, you can, which is why the President had argued in favor of doing so as part of his effort to reduce the deficit. But that alone won’t balance the budget
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
No, you idiot. She is saying that logic follows if the debt doesn’t matter, then why have taxes at all, or worry about raising them on the rich, or anyone else when this moronic logic is carried out to it’s end. We just borrow what we need and pay the interest and live happily ever after.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
No, I’m making the argument that if the debt and deficit really didn’t matter to you at all, you would want to keep everyone’s tax rates low to try and stimulate the economy.
However, you and I both know that that would be a stupid thing to do because having tax rates that low on the rich is adding to the deficit for no good reason. That’s why the tax cuts need to expire, not some airy-fairy idea about making the rich “pay their share.”
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: Yep, you’re the guy who gets to decide who’s a liberal. You’re the guy who ran screaming from the D party recently, and also defended the Obama admin for wanting to execute Awlaki in Yemen.
You’re a true blue liberal amigo. Obviously.
ruemara
@morzer:
Is it really this hard? No wonder republicans kick our ass for 8-10 years, then we pull ourselves together for just a short time, then promptly lose again. There is no second stimulus because the last, huge chunk of the first stimulus is set to be released. They don’t need one, because the first is still out there.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: Taxes are a check on the economy, not a source of revenue for the government.
Just Some Fuckhead
I gotta crash, big party tomorrow and Sunday. It’s a shame eemom never showed up and threatened to tattle to John that someone said something mean on the intertrons.
That woulda made it a complete night.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: Actually, I do believe in the rich “paying their fair share”. Sorry bout that progressive taxation ideal.
Corner Stone
@Just Some Fuckhead: Oh c’mon. Where’s my liberal reach around?
General Stuck
@Corner Stone: Typical lies from you. I wasn’t the one claiming to defend the liberal brand, whatever that is to your wet brain. It was you clown setting the standard on what or who is liberal. Very weak shit you argue with. And exactly how wingnuts do it.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
Because you’re trying to claim that Obama has a scary, scary plan to reduce the deficit that will kill us all when rational people know that so far his scary, scary plan is to let the Bush tax cuts expire, which will reduce the deficit.
Again, if you’re against reducing the deficit as you claim to be, you must be against letting the Bush tax cuts expire, because that’s the rationale for letting them expire.
Suffern ACE
So, ummm. Beyond “green jobs” and “infrastructure”, what should the next “we’re not going to call it stimulus” package contain? What are the “big stimulus now” supporters suggesting the funds be allocated for that Obama has said he doesn’t want?
I’m guessing that my modest plan to hire people to paint murals of dogs and cats on the salt sheds on interstate highways is probably a no go for him, but I’ll live.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: Surprised you didn’t mention China in there somewhere.
China! Chi-coms! Mao!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Corner Stone: Back off, sewer trout. Guffaw!
morzer
@ruemara:
Yes, ruemara, I am aware of the unspent funds. It simply has nothing to do with what I said, which was that the White House said there would be no second stimulus. This is a matter of fact, and I passed no judgment on the desirability of a second stimulus. Personally, I think the first one was badly structured and poorly targeted, but that doesn’t affect the one simple fact I was communicating: the White House said no second stimulus. Others in the thread had claimed that it was proposing a second stimulus, and I was setting the record straight ON A POINT OF FACT. Do I need to spell this out for you again?
Bob Loblaw
@Mnemosyne:
My, the angry stupidity is running hot tonight from all corners. You’d all be advised to chill out and realize it isn’t February 2008 on your calendars anymore. And yes, Stone and Fuckhead are very much included.
Current fiscal deficit as a %gdp is around ten. This is too high, in normal situations. It’s been exacerbated by a drop in revenues due to the recession, recessionary spending, and yes, incoherent taxation policy.
Cutting tax subsidies to the upper income levels is necessary to get the deficit down to a sustainable 3-5% gdp/yr level over the middle run, which is what I said. I have no interest in fetishizing surpluses for the sake of doing so. In addition, instead of wasting revenue to upper income tax cuts, should we continue to find the need to run yearly deficits at >5% gdp/yr (and we really, really do need to continue a broad, five year stimulative infrastructure and energy plan to restore full employment), not having a hole in the budget for said tax cuts offers considerably more budgetary flexibility to make this feasible.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
And the reason they need to pay their fair share is that not doing so is increasing the deficit. That’s why Obama keeps talking about reducing our debt and deficit by letting the Bush tax cuts expire.
Jesus, how fucking stupid are you? Do you just go into some kind of fugue state as soon as you hear the word “deficit” and not actually listen to what the planned solution is?
Just Some Fuckhead
@General Stuck: Stuck is right, CS. I’m pretty sure he said he was a Republican up through the Bush years.
ruemara
I marvel at this nonsense argument. How the fuck did we even get Barak Obama elected president? Obviously democrats, liberals and progressives couldn’t organize themselves to open an umbrella in a rainstorm.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
I’m just not sure you could be any stupider at this point.
At this point in time I do not care a wink about the deficit. However, I do care about the economy. And raising taxes on the wealthiest 1% would almost certainly stimulate the economy, and as a result redistribute wealth down the ladder.
So please stop your usual stupidity of trying to reinterpret things people say to fit what you like.
I want higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans because I don’t care to go back to 1929.
General Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Now you’re phoning it in. Get some sleep, maybe in the morning you will wake up smart.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne: God you’re fucking moron. Jesus, are you the love child of Stuck and Nick?
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
Too bad, I would buy you a ticket.
Mark S.
I’m getting a lot of peace and love off of this thread. Keep up the good vibes people.
morzer
@Mark S.:
Kumbaya, my Lord, kumbaya…
All together now!
Kumbaya…
Corner Stone
@Bob Loblaw: Whatever troll school you came from I suggest you go back for finishing school.
Every website attracts their own trolls, and I guess you’re just the latest version of Brick Oven Bill here.
morzer
@Corner Stone:
He’s proposing pretty standard liberal ideas on taxation, you know. Just sayin’.
Bob Loblaw
@Corner Stone:
Interesting how quickly you turned there. Elapsed turnaround: 0.6 seconds. Well done.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
LOL, or course they are you big brain liberal ideal.
Mnemosyne
@Corner Stone:
I see you’re continuing to ignore the fact that when Obama talks about how he’s going to reduce the debt and deficit, he says he’s going to do it by letting the Bush tax cuts expire.
Apparently if he has a different explanation for letting them expire than you do, it’s just like he’s not going to let them expire at all!
And how would it do that, exactly? Magical elves come to your door with a basket of money from Bill Gates? Or would it happen because the government would then have extra money that they could invest in infrastructure rather than having most of their income (aka tax revenue) going towards debt repayment?
Suffern ACE
@Mark S.: I love you Mark S. But then I try to love pretty much everybody, so it probably doesn’t count.
Nick
@ruemara:
I’m not certain we got him elected. I think Lehman Brothers and George W. Bush got him elected.
I mean did we forget the freakshow we called a Presidential primary?
eemom
tee hee. Saw the number of comments and said to myself, yep, it’s been upgraded to a Cat 4 flame war…..
ETA: before I go back and read, I’ll just hazard a guess that Corney and Fuckhead are playing tandem asshole against the General and Mnemosyne. I’ll let you know if I was right.
Mnemosyne
The funniest thing to me is that apparently Bob Loblaw and I agree about something. That’s actually pretty scary.
morzer
@eemom:
Hey
Matokohoneybun.fasteddie9318
Are the Koch Brothers still paying any taxes? If they are, cut whatever they’re paying; there’s your bipartisan stimulus right there.
General Stuck
@eemom: I’d say Cat 2, maybe a 3. I didn’t spank corner stone with the raspy paddle this time. Used to I could make him cry, but he’s a tough guy now a days.
Mark S.
@eemom:
Oh, are you in for a surprise!
ETA: You’re not actually in for a surprise.
eemom
@morzer:
Eeek! What did I do to deserve THAT? : (
@Mnemosyne:
This blog makes strange bedfellows.
morzer
@eemom:
It’s not that long ago that Chad N Freude suggested we were married! Did I miss a crucial transition in our relationship?
Corner Stone
@Bob Loblaw: If you have something to call out about what I have said, I would appreciate you doing so.
But dumping me in the stupidity bucket that includes Mnemosyne is really bullshit.
I’ve seen you do this “pox on both your houses” lazy bullshit before and I don’t care for it.
Say what you’ve got to say, but don’t hang me with morons like that.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: You little pansy. You’re the drama queen who dragged ass across the stage for 5 days after begging Cole to “officially ban” you.
You said you were done and then spent a solid 3 days away from BJ until you triumphantly returned.
“Oh John Cole! You disagreed with me! I must commit blog seppuku! Or at least not comment for a couple days!”
You are the last clown to talk about fee fees.
morzer
@Corner Stone:
I do appreciate a well-formed, logical argument free of spurious rhetoric and name-calling.
Corner Stone
@morzer: Sigh.
ETA – which is to say – do you even know what I’m talking about?
morzer
@Corner Stone:
As far as I can tell, you are simply name-calling. But if there is a deeper wisdom implicit in what you are saying, do feel free to be its exegete to a grateful world.
Corner Stone
@morzer: And? If you don’t know then you don’t know.
Not my problem.
Corner Stone
But I do always enjoy it so.
eemom
well shit, I was even righter than I thought I was.
One can really learn something from reading one of these threads without being involved in it. A semi-objective perspective.
I didn’t exactly learn anything NEW, but it did reinforce my opinion that Fuckie and Cornie are a pair of equal opportunity haters that lack any moral or political agenda other than……well, hating.
Also y’all did succeed in getting under Cornie’s skin…..the increase in blood pressure was evidenced by the increasing hysteria and reflexiveness of the name-calling.
I will have to admit I was touched that Fuckie remembers me even when I’m not around, and even goes to the effort of coming up with a new epithet to hurl at me: tattle-tale! SO creative for a third-grader!
Someday I will gather the courage to go to China and check into one of those Clockwork Orange-style internet detox programs they have there.
eemom
@morzer:
no…..just puzzled why you likened me to that insufferable twerp Matoko….?
Corner Stone
@eemom:
That’s fairly obvious, eh?
Sentient Puddle
After skimming the comments of this post, I’m glad I took a pass and played Super Mario Galaxy 2 as well.
And Jesus, I’m only at 42 stars. I got some fucking catching up to do.
Corner Stone
@Sentient Puddle: True dat. My 5yr old is whuppin you.
eemom
@Corner Stone:
oooh, that’d be a good one, Stonie……exceptin you and she have always hitted it right off on these here threads.
mclaren
@Corner Stone:
Dude…arguing with ignorant sociopathic kooks like Mnemosyne and General Crackpot Fake Name is a waste of time. These people tell crazed lies for sport, then deny they ever said what they said.
General Crackpot Fake Name begged Cole to ban him a few months back and wrote a post saying goodbye to everyone because he had finally faced up to his chronic internet addiction and was glad he would no longer waste all his time slouched over a computer, posting drivel online. A week later, Crackpot Fake Name was back.
Mnemosyne has admitted in another thread that she had serious psychological/psychiatric problems in high school.
Responding to these kind of pathetic individuals puts one in mind of Simonides of Keos’ maxim: to argue with a fool is to become one.
General Stuck
@Corner Stone: LOL, yes, triumphantly returned to, like before, wedgie your pig ignorant ass pretty much every day since. Task Farce Ranger, tough internet guy. teehee.
And here is Lex Luther Mclaren, so your better half is here to rescue Otis Stone.
Americaneocon
American Power tracked-back with, ‘Postcards From the Obama Economy’.
Geek Hillbilly
The real problem is that the Dems are too timid to call out the GOP for what they are-economic terrorists.The Democrat leadership needs to grow some balls,tell the GOP “STFU!” and get off their asses and do something.Piss on bi-partisanship and that crap.DO REAL REFORM,not the half-assed watered down crap we’ve seen so far.
If the GOP get back in power,I see 2 things happening.A Great Depression of the 21st century and a possible 2nd American civil war,pitting the Wall Street corporatists vs. the working people.Lock and load,I’m ready for CEO season,no holds barred.