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You are here: Home / Politics / Shut ’em down, open up shop

Shut ’em down, open up shop

by DougJ|  September 4, 20101:35 pm| 139 Comments

This post is in: Politics

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I’ve come around to thinking that it, while it may be difficult for Republicans to impeach Obama, there is an excellent chance that they will shut down the government again if they get control of either branch of Congress. Obama’s too squeaky clean to be personally destroyed, but a government shut down could exacerbate economic problems to the point where Republicans have a strong chance in the 2012 presidential election. Donna Shalala points out that a shut-down today could be much more destructive than the one that happened before; economically, shutting down the government during the Bush/Reagan boom of the mid ’90s didn’t do that much damage, but doing so during the Obama recession just might.

The impact of employees out of work, and beneficiaries without checks, will hit the country much harder in the next year than it did under President Clinton. “It would stop all new enrollees into the [Social Security] system,” Shalala said.

“It bounces through: it’s grocery stores, it’s farms,” she said — and the list goes on. “It bounces through when people don’t have money at that scale.”

Meanwhile, some thoughtful, principled centrists think our own Erik Kain should “vote for divided government”, to distinguish himself from “ideological hacks”.

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Reader Interactions

139Comments

  1. 1.

    Corner Stone

    September 4, 2010 at 1:42 pm

    I can not believe you went straight ghetto DMX on us.

  2. 2.

    Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle

    September 4, 2010 at 1:43 pm

    I really don’t think Conor Friedersdorf gets it. In his way of thinking, Communism has never failed. What he doesn’t seem to realize is that People like Marx, Burke and others are laying down a Utopian type vision. The problem is that Utopia doesn’t exist.

  3. 3.

    DougJ

    September 4, 2010 at 1:44 pm

    @Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:

    I think the comparison with communism is very apt. It’s exactly the right way to look at modern conservatism.

  4. 4.

    Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle

    September 4, 2010 at 1:45 pm

    I have a question for those more knowledgeable than I here. If I click on all these anti-Christine O’Donnell ads, does Cole get any of that money?

  5. 5.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 4, 2010 at 1:47 pm

    Not really on topic, but Friedersdorf’s insistent use of “Mr Kain” in that post is the blogging equivalent of carrying a briefcase to middle school. It makes me want to punch him in the face. I hope it’s some kind of inside joke.

  6. 6.

    Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle

    September 4, 2010 at 1:48 pm

    @DougJ: Thanks. What I find funny about those that claim Communism failed is that they’ve likely never read Marx, or much of anything else for that matter. Just like today’s Conservatives/GOPers bastardize Conservatism, so to did the Russians(well Stalin and all the rest) bastardize the version of Communism that Marx wrote about.

  7. 7.

    Mike G

    September 4, 2010 at 1:49 pm

    Uh, “the Bush/Reagan boom”?

    The mid-90s was several years after climbing out of the Bush/Reagan recession. The economy took off after Clinton slashed the deficits (with a tax increase that the Republitards insisted would cause a ‘Great Depression’), setting off an investment boom.

  8. 8.

    DougJ

    September 4, 2010 at 1:51 pm

    @Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle:

    Well, I think that the issue is this with both: Sovietism was a disaster in much the same way that modern American conservatism is (Sovietism was much worse, obviously, but I think intellectually, they’re quite similar). At a certain point, it stops mattering what Burke or Marx wrote, when Stalin and Cheney are on the loose.

  9. 9.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    September 4, 2010 at 1:52 pm

    a government shut down could exacerbate economic problems to the point where Republicans have a strong chance in the 2012 presidential election

    The fact that the economy was doing well when the GOP pulled this trick the last time was what made it effective. It was a symbolic gesture. With folks struggling just to stay in their homes, the stakes are much higher this time. An attempt to shutdown a major employer in this economic climate has backfire written all over it.

  10. 10.

    sherparick

    September 4, 2010 at 1:53 pm

    Just a quibble, but how was it the “Bush-Reagan” boom of the 1990s when a guy named Clinton was President from Jan 93 to Jan 01?

  11. 11.

    Bob Loblaw

    September 4, 2010 at 1:54 pm

    Technically, there’s plenty that Obama could be impeached and indicted for. It just all happens to be in the national security sector. So I think he’s pretty cool on that front.

    Although, the sheer farcical hypocrisy of it all would be one of the greatest things in the history of forever.

  12. 12.

    gloria

    September 4, 2010 at 1:54 pm

    That would be the Clinton boom, if no one pointed it out yet.

  13. 13.

    Betsy

    September 4, 2010 at 1:55 pm

    @Mike G:
    @sherparick:
    I believe this is referred to as “sarcasm.”

  14. 14.

    DougJ

    September 4, 2010 at 1:58 pm

    @Bob Loblaw:

    Although, the sheer farcical hypocrisy of it all would be one of the greatest things in the history of forever.

    I agree.

  15. 15.

    MikeJ

    September 4, 2010 at 2:02 pm

    @DougJ:

    At a certain point, it stops mattering what Burke

    OT, but the other day I was listening to this Yale class on the civil war that DennisG mentioned. The Prof said the slaveholders were “deeply conservative, in a Burkean way” and my immediate thought was you.

  16. 16.

    smiley

    September 4, 2010 at 2:02 pm

    @Shawn in ShowMe:

    An attempt to shutdown a major employer in this economic climate has backfire written all over it.

    That was my first impression too. However, their strategy may be to claim that they can’t work with Obama so once they get a republican back in the White House, they’ll get things going again. Just a thought.

  17. 17.

    Pete

    September 4, 2010 at 2:05 pm

    Man, Friedersdorf is specialising in coming across as insufferably smug. This whole “Mr Kain” thing really should stop – he hasn’t earned that level of pomposity.

  18. 18.

    DougJ

    September 4, 2010 at 2:06 pm

    @MikeJ:

    I’m flattered.

  19. 19.

    jwb

    September 4, 2010 at 2:07 pm

    Personally, I can’t see how the Goopers shutting down the government will not get a large chunk of the population mad at them. See, the funny thing that will happen once they do it is that they’ll then have to explain what they are doing and enough people are going to mad that they will have to explain what they are doing. As the saying goes, if you’re explaining, you’re losing. Even if Fox News is doing the explaining for you, you’re still losing.

  20. 20.

    jwb

    September 4, 2010 at 2:09 pm

    @DougJ: Give American conservatives even 30 years of unchecked power, and they’ll make the Soviet Union look like utopia.

  21. 21.

    JGabriel

    September 4, 2010 at 2:13 pm

    DougJ:

    … a government shut down could exacerbate economic problems to the point where Republicans have a strong chance in the 2012 presidential election.

    Maybe, but I suspect the GOP would get the same kind of blowback they saw in ’95-’97. The shutdown was extremely unpopular, the GOP got the blame, and they folded in 3-4 weeks.

    The public understands that if checks don’t go out because Congress won’t fund them, then Congress is at fault. There isn’t jack shit the President can do about it, and the GOP will suffer instead of Obama when people don’t get their Social Security and disability direct deposits.

    .

  22. 22.

    Shawn in ShowMe

    September 4, 2010 at 2:14 pm

    @smiley

    That was my first impression too. However, their strategy may be to claim that they can’t work with Obama so once they get a republican back in the White House

    Oh I agree that is the strategy. But they’re forcing folks who desperately need their jobs to choose between believing in Republican promises and putting food on the table. It’s a bridge too far.

  23. 23.

    tfitzaz

    September 4, 2010 at 2:14 pm

    I am not sure how ‘squeaky clean” Obama is, since all of his records have been blacked out or redacted. As for shutting the government down, the Repugs, what a bunch of n’er do wells.

  24. 24.

    Nate

    September 4, 2010 at 2:16 pm

    How do we know this isn’t what Obama and the national Dems want? At this point, it seems the only shot Obama has at re-election is to run against the obstructionist GOP in 2012. Axelrod and Emmanuel have to know this.

    The spineless Democratic congressional leadership no longer has the unbearable burden of actually governing (you can practically hear the sighs of relief already). The Republicans will play their part, hound Obama mercilessly, shut down the gov’t, and get the wrath of a 2012 electorate. Plus, imagine how much more populist the Democratic rhetoric will get once they no longer have any obligation to implement any of it. I’m sure we’ll finally hear all about gay rights and environmental policy and immigration and all the stuff they didn’t have time for in the last 18 months.

    It’s win-win! Well, unless you’re a citizen who depends on a functioning gov’t. Then you’re completely screwed.

  25. 25.

    Hal

    September 4, 2010 at 2:17 pm

    Wait, so the Republicans shut down the Government, the economy gets worse directly because of that; people don’t get paid, bills pile up, people go hungry etc, and the electorate will blame Obama for that?

    I realize Americans can be gullible and wishy-washy, but really?

  26. 26.

    Corner Stone

    September 4, 2010 at 2:19 pm

    @Nate:

    At this point, it seems the only shot Obama has at re-election is to run against the obstructionist GOP in 2012. Axelrod and Emmanuel have to know this.

    He will never do this. How can he?

  27. 27.

    Frank

    September 4, 2010 at 2:19 pm

    Obama’s too squeaky clean to be personally destroyed, but a government shut down could exacerbate economic problems to the point where Republicans have a strong chance in the 2012 presidential election.

    Personally I doubt it. People will know it is Republicans who shut down the government. When they can no longer go to their favorite national park, when they no longer get their SS check it will be unpopular just like it was the last the GOP tried this.

    I think it would not only strengthen Obama, it would help the Dems in the 2012 Congressional election.

  28. 28.

    jwb

    September 4, 2010 at 2:19 pm

    @Nate: I don’t actually think that Obama is that cynical in his political calculus.

  29. 29.

    burnspbesq

    September 4, 2010 at 2:21 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I generally think very highly of you, but wanting to punch someone for being polite? Where is that coming from?

  30. 30.

    Corner Stone

    September 4, 2010 at 2:21 pm

    Damn, AZ Cardinals to release Matt Leinart.

  31. 31.

    Sly

    September 4, 2010 at 2:24 pm

    Meanwhile, some thoughtful, principled centrists think our own Erik Kain should “vote for divided government”, to distinguish himself from “ideological hacks”.

    Unsurprising.

    The ideology of centrism is what gives centrists their sense of moral and intellectual worth. They are both above the pettiness of political struggle and the narrow-mindedness of those that participate in that struggle. For this sensibility to be preserved, liberals must always be in equal proportion to conservatives in terms of their pettiness and intellectual sloth, no matter the evidence to the contrary.

    It’s one of the two pillars that supports the “Democrats are just as bad as Republicans” canard. The other pillar being the widespread lack of desire to learn anything about politics, for fear that even attempting to wrap one’s mind around an issue or set of issues will result in failure, confirming the internal suspicion that one is a goddamned idiot or will be externally perceived as such.

  32. 32.

    burnspbesq

    September 4, 2010 at 2:27 pm

    Voting for divided government could be seen as a viable option back in the days when both sides were sincerely interesting in governing, and could therefore find ground for compromise and accomodation.

    However, in the words of Don Henley,

    “Those days are gone forever,
    I should just let ’em go”

  33. 33.

    handy

    September 4, 2010 at 2:28 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    As a Bruin, the Schadenfreude has been mighty tasty these last few monhts.

  34. 34.

    Corner Stone

    September 4, 2010 at 2:32 pm

    @handy: Dude just didn’t have it. Looked like a whipped puppy.
    Still a multi millionaire so I’m not gonna feel too bad for him.

  35. 35.

    Anne Laurie

    September 4, 2010 at 2:33 pm

    DougJ, I think at least some of the True-Faith Republican(tm) ratfvckers are playing their version of the “long game”: When Newt & his Nutty Buddys shut down Congress, the White House interns had unprecedented access to the Oval Office, and one of them flashed her thong at the President. Ergo, if the Orange Boehner can shut down Congress, maybe the Repubs will finally discover the chink in Obama’s armor of wonky dispassion!…

    Of course, even if politics were as simple as the parables we like to tell about it, Rahm certainly remembers the Lewinsky saga too. But you can’t blame a simple multicelled organism like the RNC for following the slimetrail its predecessors left through the maze.

  36. 36.

    burnspbesq

    September 4, 2010 at 2:33 pm

    @handy:

    When UCLA actually beats somebody good, let’s talk.

    It’s one thing for Duke fans to have schadenfreude about what happened to ol’ Roy last year, because we have two convincing wins over the Heels to back it up (and there is the small matter of the national championship, as well).

    Whaddayougot, Bruin football fans?

  37. 37.

    JGabriel

    September 4, 2010 at 2:33 pm

    @Nate:

    The spineless Democratic congressional leadership no longer has the unbearable burden of actually governing…

    Two points:

    1) the Democrats actually don’t mind governing – you’re confusing them with Republicans;

    2) Pelosi has been doing a great job pushing bills through the House, it’s the Senate GOP that is preventing legislation and funding from getting through due to their constant filbustering and delaying tactics.

    I definitely wouldn’t call Pelosi spineless. Reid is another matter, but even there I wouldn’t say he’s spineless about governing, just about confronting and attacking GOP rhetoric.

    .

  38. 38.

    PanAmerican

    September 4, 2010 at 2:36 pm

    The crazy fucking greedheads are running against the new Amtrak services in Wisconsin and Ohio.

  39. 39.

    patrick II

    September 4, 2010 at 2:38 pm

    Unfortunately, I did not keep source name for attribution, but:

    In his 2003 book, Breach of Trust, Coburn portrayed Gingrich as lacking in courage and in good judgment.

    Coburn said Gingrich was outwitted by President Bill Clinton in the 1995 battle over the budget which led to temporary shutdown of the government. “Our leaders folded instead of standing their ground, Coburn wrote. History shows that the shutdown fight was a fight we could have won.”

    So, now with the cowardly Gingrich gone, Coburn things they should have the nerve to shut the government down long enough to….what? What did Coburn consider “winning”?

  40. 40.

    Sly

    September 4, 2010 at 2:41 pm

    @JGabriel:

    If only Harry Reid would immediately call a vote to end the filibuster (something that can only be done at the beginning of a congressional term) or force the Republicans to stand up and read the phone book during a filibuster (something that has been impossible for the majority to do since the 1970s), he wouldn’t be perceived as such a flagrant pussy.

    Moving mountains isn’t enough. He must eat them. And shit out gold.

  41. 41.

    Sentient Puddle

    September 4, 2010 at 2:46 pm

    @patrick II: I know in recent days, Gingrich has taken to the whole notion that his side won on the government shutdown. I can’t make heads or tails of the logic, though.

    As for Coburn’s logic, well, I think you can reasonably guess it. He simply hates congress and functioning government.

  42. 42.

    Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)

    September 4, 2010 at 2:48 pm

    Guess we’ll have to stop and drop ’em. (Door-to-door knocking OFA style that is).

  43. 43.

    Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)

    September 4, 2010 at 2:51 pm

    OT: I wish this would happen here: Shoes, eggs hurled at Ex-Brit PM Blair in Dublin. Instead I have people trying to convince me that I should miss the good old GWB days. Insane.

  44. 44.

    Lolis

    September 4, 2010 at 2:53 pm

    I actually think if Republicans win in 2010, Obama is guaranteed re-election in 2012. If the GOP takes power, Obama actually has a foil, outside of people in his own party who internally fuck things up but can’t be blamed. Republicans want to shut down government I say go ahead. They have essentially done that right now but nobody calls them out for it. The worst thing the GOP can do is gain power and be forced to take blame/responsibility for the bad economy.

  45. 45.

    Corner Stone

    September 4, 2010 at 2:59 pm

    @Lolis:

    I actually think if Republicans win in 2010, Obama is guaranteed re-election in 2012. If the GOP takes power, Obama actually has a foil, outside of people in his own party who internally fuck things up but can’t be blamed.

    I hate to tell you this, but “Mean Republicans wouldn’t let me govern!” isn’t really a winning message.

  46. 46.

    Stillwater

    September 4, 2010 at 2:59 pm

    Conor writes two long pieces of window dressing unintentionally highlighting the intellectual bankruptcy of contemporary Conservatism. He talks about a noble efforts to reform what has become a dysfunctional political ideology, yet fails to suggest even one such reform that isn’t a mere platitude. On his view, all (or nearly all) of the current members of the conservative movement (ie., factions within the GOP) are wrong on the fundamentals, yet he fails to see that this is precisely why EDK – in his very own words – left the movement. He then has the audacity (unselfconsiousness?) to say that ideological categories really don’t matter. What’s important is that policy disputes be settled by the strength of the supporting argument, as if – in a broad hand wave – conservatives have a plethora of these.

    Contemporary Conservatives assume premises without evidence, assert empirical claims as if they were self-evident, arrive at conclusions without argument. Conor is a joke. And if he’s the brightest of the rising conservative stars, then he proves the point that contemporary conservatism is a joke as well.

  47. 47.

    demo woman

    September 4, 2010 at 3:04 pm

    Corner Stone, So when does Leinart declare bankruptcy?

    Sentient Puddle.. Gingrich has been taking cues from Haley Barbour. The MSM is to lame and impotent to call them on their lies.

  48. 48.

    maus

    September 4, 2010 at 3:05 pm

    @Sentient Puddle: The man writes alt-history books, for chrissake. Why is it so strange that he retcons his entire career?

  49. 49.

    maus

    September 4, 2010 at 3:09 pm

    @demo woman: The word “lie” is a partisan liberal term and should not be used in the newsroom.

  50. 50.

    burnspbesq

    September 4, 2010 at 3:12 pm

    @Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people):

    From the linked article on the Blair book-signing in Dublin:

    Blair took the world to war in Iraq and Afghanistan on the basis of lies,” protester Donal MacFhearraigh said. He said Blair should be indicted as a war criminal.

    Say what now, Donal? Who took the world to war in Iraq and Afghanistan?

    Guy’s played too much hurling without a helmet. Speaking of which, go Tipperary!

  51. 51.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 4, 2010 at 3:12 pm

    @maus: How about saying something along the lines of : that happens to not be correct, or that statement is diametrically opposed to established facts, or this is not true?

  52. 52.

    Bob Loblaw

    September 4, 2010 at 3:14 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    It’s better than running against his own Congress for the last four years.

    Of course he’s better off running against a split Congress. It’s ever postpartisan douchebag’s dream.

  53. 53.

    Sly

    September 4, 2010 at 3:17 pm

    Is there some kind of list somewhere of all the fucking words that are filtered by WordPress?

  54. 54.

    Corner Stone

    September 4, 2010 at 3:18 pm

    @Bob Loblaw:
    Obama’s been on a Republican Rehabilitation Tour for the last couple years.

  55. 55.

    Corner Stone

    September 4, 2010 at 3:19 pm

    @burnspbesq: It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.

  56. 56.

    licensed to kill time

    September 4, 2010 at 3:28 pm

    @Sly:

    Here you go: WordPress Spam Words.

    Also look in Lexicon under ‘Moderation’.

  57. 57.

    Frank

    September 4, 2010 at 3:31 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    I hate to tell you this, but “Mean Republicans wouldn’t let me govern!” isn’t really a winning message.

    Seems to have worked just fine for Bill Clinton in 1996…

  58. 58.

    DougJ

    September 4, 2010 at 3:33 pm

    @Stillwater:

    He talks about a noble efforts to reform what has become a dysfunctional political ideology, yet fails to suggest even one such reform that isn’t a mere platitude.

    Exactly.

  59. 59.

    Chris

    September 4, 2010 at 3:34 pm

    You don’t have to vote Republican to get divided government; Democrats in control of everything will do nicely.

    And I don’t know why we let Sullivan into the tent; he’s still a jackass far too often. Can we let the conservatives have him back? At least that way we won’t be surprised by his pro-Republican bullshit so often.

  60. 60.

    Stillwater

    September 4, 2010 at 3:43 pm

    And look, since I’m already ranting, let’s get real here. Conservatism, as an ideology, is not, nor has it ever been, an intellectual endeavor. It is the public face of a temperment – a murky and fuzzy-bounded collection of narrowly self-interested emotions that permit neither subjective analysis nor intellectual justification. Those narrow emotions are the foundation of the ‘ideology’, and they’re immutable (that’s why conservatism cannot fail, only be failed).

    The only intellectual aspect of the conservative project is to create a coherent story ‘justifying’ what conservatives already believe. In what’s left of the real world, that psychological half-gainer is called something else: a rationalization.

  61. 61.

    kay

    September 4, 2010 at 3:46 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I stopped reading after “movement conservatives….lost a married father living in a red state….” (Kain)

    If conservatives wonder why I have trust issues with them, they need look no further than statements like that.

    Why would a “married father” be more likely to be a “movement conservative” (whatever the hell that is, this week) ?
    I object to the idea that conservatives own either “marriage” or “fatherhood”. It’s a completely baseless assumption. I’m tired of them slyly inserting qualifiers like that.

  62. 62.

    Kryptik

    September 4, 2010 at 3:49 pm

    It’s just my growing cynicism and pessimism talking, but I’m not totally convinced anymore that even if the Republicans successfully pulled off a total gov’t shutdown and crowed proudly about it, and it resulted in the sort of pain expected, that the electorate would actually bother to blame the GOP for it.

    Even at their most transparent and nakedly vile, the GOP simply seems to be gaining momentum to the point they could eat a baby and successfully blame Obama for it. :/

  63. 63.

    Stillwater

    September 4, 2010 at 3:52 pm

    @DougJHow does this guy not hide in shame? He’s trying to defend conservatism from some of EDKs criticisms, and the best he can come up with is that …well, reform is necessary…there is some intellectually rigor (I know I try to correct people’s innaccuracies)…and really ideology doesn’t matter anyway….

    His whole critique (over both posts) effectively proved EDKs point!

  64. 64.

    PaulW

    September 4, 2010 at 3:53 pm

    this is the thing I don’t get:

    The Republicans threaten to shut down government if they get in charge of Congress in 2011… and yet it will be the DEMOCRATS who get blamed for it?!

    Jesus Christ, how the hell does that logic work? Why? Because the Democrats won’t roll over and give the Republicans everything they want? Yeah, thanks Beltway insiders, blaming the victim for the bullies’ bad habits makes a shitload of sense.

    Hint: the last time we gave the Republicans control, say 2001-2006, the Republicans wasted billions on a Medicare bill that was a cover for a Big Pharma payout, wasted trillions on two wars where we should have been fighting only one, and oversaw government deregulation of industries and financial institutions that have led to Wall St. bailouts (happened on Bush’s watch, REMEMBER?!) and exploding oil rigs (Obama hasn’t been able to clear out all that damn civil servant deadwood left over from the Bush years)! HELLO AMERICA! PUTTING THE REPUBLICANS BACK IN CHARGE IS NOT GOING TO FUCKING HELP!

  65. 65.

    JWL

    September 4, 2010 at 4:12 pm

    Backfire, indeed.

    That said, perhaps it will take an electoral debacle this November to roust Obama and his administration from its stupor. To remind them all they were SWEPT into power to fight-and-destroy republican policies, not accommodate them.

  66. 66.

    j

    September 4, 2010 at 4:16 pm

    @Mike G:

    I was just going to link to charts stating that exact thing. Clinton turned the GOP disaster of an economy around before Newt pulled his stunt.

    Also, too, (wink) what the Hell is the “Obama recession”?

    Do you mean the one where the economy started to go stagnant in 2007 and went into full free fall in 2008 BEFORE Obama was even elected, let alone sworn in?

    So, DougJ, do you have any charts of figures to back up these unsubstantiated claims?

  67. 67.

    Bob Loblaw

    September 4, 2010 at 4:23 pm

    @j:

    Do you mean the one where the economy started to go stagnant in 2007 and went into full free fall in 2008 BEFORE Obama was even elected, let alone sworn in?

    It’s perpetually irritating to watch people completely fail to recognize sarcasm on the internet day after day after day. Not surprising, given the state of the American public school system, just irritating.

  68. 68.

    j

    September 4, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    @tfitzaz:

    Prove it!

  69. 69.

    j

    September 4, 2010 at 4:42 pm

    @Bob Loblaw:

    If more than I were ‘confused’ and “don’t get it” perhaps it isn’t our fault. A simple “/snark” or a smiley face would have made the point. BTW, you have no idea as to what my (or anyone else’s for that matter) education is, so your air of superiority is not appreciated.

  70. 70.

    Stillwater

    September 4, 2010 at 4:45 pm

    @j: BTW, you have no idea as to what my (or anyone else’s for that matter) education is, so your air of superiority is not appreciated.

    Hah! I think Bob won that round.

    (Or did he……)

  71. 71.

    DougJ

    September 4, 2010 at 5:02 pm

    @Stillwater:

    His posts completely proved ED’s points. Conor will drive you crazy if you read him enough.

  72. 72.

    mclaren

    September 4, 2010 at 5:07 pm

    The Republicans will clearly take back the House. They might not take back the senate too, but that’s not certain.

    More likely the Repubs will simply defund Obama’s programs rather than shut the government down. The House has the power of the purse, so in between endless hearings and investigations of Obama’s Christmas card list and his birth certificate, the Republicans in control of the House will probably just refuse to appropriate money for the provisions of the new health care bill like expanding medicare.

    The Repubs in charge of the house will almost certainly zero out funding for the regulatory agencies the Democratic bills have set up to supervise insurance cartels etc. Obama’s FCC chairman has been a particular thorn in the side of the big national monopoly ISPs and cable companies so the Repubs running the House will probably reduce his salary to zero dollars per year.

    It’ll be interesting to see how long Obama’s appointees can continue to do their jobs when their paychecks stop.

    This is why I keep explaining to people that the Republicans always win and the Democrats always lose. The Repubs aren’t afraid to get hard-core and go to extremes. They’ll do insane things like shut off the microphones and turn off the lights when the Democrats are doing a congressional investigation. The Repubs will go to extremes like voting in a block to shut off funding for authorized government programs, if they don’t like ’em.

    If Obama and the Democrats had used those tactics, we’d have a nationalized single-payer health care system and we’d have been out of Iraq and Afghanistan in 2004 and the Penagon’s torture and assassination programs would have ended 8 years ago.

    Obama and the Democrats just don’t want to go to extremes. They think it would be impolite to fill all Obama’s judicial vacancies by using recess appointements. They think it would be bad manners to use signing statements to subvert the plain meaning of the law and shut down things like the Pentagon JSOC assassination program. Democrats think it would be unruly and uncouth to refuse to fund programs that the Republicans voted into existence, like the Afghanistan drone murders or the nationwide warrantless wiretapping.

    Republicans don’t give a shit how impolite they are. Republicans don’t give a damn whether it’s bad manners when they filibuster. Republicans don’t care how unruly and uncouth they have to get when they’re battling the other party. That’s why Republicans always win. In a political knife fight, the Democrats always bring a butter knife and the Republicans attack with a meat hook in one hand and a chainsaw in the other.

  73. 73.

    The humanity

    September 4, 2010 at 5:11 pm

    @Stillwater:

    Contemporary Conservatives assume premises without evidence, assert empirical claims as if they were self-evident, arrive at conclusions without argument.

    Ain’t that America?

  74. 74.

    mclaren

    September 4, 2010 at 5:25 pm

    @Hal:

    Wait, so the Republicans shut down the Government, the economy gets worse directly because of that; people don’t get paid, bills pile up, people go hungry etc, and the electorate will blame Obama for that?

    Exactamundo.

    Read Billmon’s classic article “Spock with a beard: the sequel” to see how it works.

    The Republicans have been fantastically successful at creating an alternate history. In the Republican alternate universe, there was a “Reagan boom” that resulting in huge economic growth rates as a result of his tax cuts. Even people on this site, liberals, have repeated that lie. It’s become part of the national discourse, something every knows is true.

    Except it isn’t true.

    Look at the growth of the U.S. GDP from 1945 to 1980 and you see it averages 4.5%. Then look at the U.S. GDP growth rate from 1980 to 2010, and you’ll see it averages 2.5%. The Reagan “economic boom” was an economic bust. GDP growth declined after Reagan’s tax cuts.

    But everyone believes it increased.

    Ask people on the street who bailed out the banks and hedge funds when the world economy collapsed. Everyone will tell you Obama set up TARP and supervised the bailout. But it was actually the previous malaministration. TARP went through months before Obama ever took office.

    But everyone believes Obama set up TARP and bailed out the banks.

    Ask the average person on the street who invaded Afghanistan, and I bet they’ll you it was Obama. Of course, the previous maladminstration invaded Afghanistan after 9/11, but now everyone believes it’s Obama who did that.

    Facts don’t matter if you can convince people of lies.

    The Republicans have created an entire alternate universe. FDR caused the Great Depression, we were just about to win in Vietnam when cowardly treasonous Democrats pulled the plug on funding and shut the war down, America never experienced a terrorist attack under Republican rule, and the Reagan-Bush tax cuts made the U.S. economy take off like a rocket.

    All delusional, all lies, and these have now become “obvious truths” that “everyone knows because it’s common knowledge.”

  75. 75.

    JWL

    September 4, 2010 at 5:37 pm

    “The Republicans have been fantastically successful at creating an alternate history”.

    Which is exactly why I was incensed with Obama’s “we’re all patriots, let us therefore turn the page together” bullshit

  76. 76.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    September 4, 2010 at 5:45 pm

    @Stillwater:

    He then has the audacity (unselfconsiousness?) to say that ideological categories really don’t matter.

    In fairness to Conor, it has to be said that contemporary Movement Conservatism isn’t really an ideological category so much as it is a mental health condition.

    Of course that still leaves his argument with the problem that he wants us to try to reach a reasonable compromise with crazy people, but what ya’ gonna do about it, until he wakes up to this ugly reality? Forget it Conor, it’s Chinatown.

  77. 77.

    Stillwater

    September 4, 2010 at 5:50 pm

    @mclaren: The Repubs aren’t afraid to get hard-core and go to extremes. They’ll do insane things like shut off the microphones and turn off the lights when the Democrats are doing a congressional investigation. The Repubs will go to extremes like voting in a block to shut off funding for authorized government programs, if they don’t like ‘em.

    I agree with this, and not just … you know … trivially. Conservatives aren’t playing a board game. They will use any trick, legal or not, acceptable or not, practical or not, to advance their agenda. In war there are no rules. And quite clearly, the GOP is at war with Democrats.

    The Democrat response to this assault – at least amongst us citizen-voters – is to point out, in a STERN VOICE, that some GOP Rep is inconsistent on X, or a GOP Sen contradicted himself, or laugh at him for being so factually inaccurate, or get pissy that he violated procedural rules. It’s like bringing a knife to a gun fight. None of the conservatively minded voters could give a rats ass about a contradishun.

    Dems, or liberal progressives, can only hope to win this war by recognizing that it is in fact a war, and that the strategies we employ in internal disagreements are not only ineffective, but just silly. We need something a little more robust. Something, perhaps, a little more like this:

    Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. ‘Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is.

  78. 78.

    Corner Stone

    September 4, 2010 at 5:53 pm

    @JWL:

    Which is exactly why I was incensed with Obama’s “we’re all patriots, let us therefore turn the page together” bullshit

    Republican rehabilitation.

  79. 79.

    Stillwater

    September 4, 2010 at 5:55 pm

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: In fairness to Conor,

    Well, you’re right about the mental health condition, but I don’t think this is being fair to Conor: he’d be pissed that a nanny-stater was defending him by accurately describing his situation.

  80. 80.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    September 4, 2010 at 6:00 pm

    @Stillwater:

    And quite clearly, the GOP is at war with Democrats.

    The US is deeply divided between cultural blocs which predate the two parties. At times when the partisan divide between the parties align on similar lines as these cultural blocs, politics in the US becomes the continuation of civil war by other means. We are in such a period. The lines between the two parties today would be instantly recognizable to Lincoln and his contemporaries.

    One problem the Dems have is that their glory days, harking back to FDR, came during a period when the lines where muddled because the partisan divide between Dems and GOPers cut across the fault lines between the cultural north and cultural south. What they think of as “bipartisanship” was an incidental byproduct of that period, when you had liberal northeastern Republicans and conservative southern Democrats. Those times are no more, and they aren’t coming back any time soon. Dems need to get over the idea that they are dealing with an opposition with which any sort of deal can be reached. Until then, they will keep playing George McClellan to the GOP’s Lee and Jackson – which means getting their asses whipped by numerically inferior forces.

    And the worst part is, Obama is leading the pack in terms of this sort of intellectual blindness. Either that, or his vanity has persuaded him that his historical role is to bind up the nation’s wounds and heal its divisions, as if he was finishing off Lincoln’s 2nd term. But it isn’t metaphorical 1865 right now, it is only 1862.

  81. 81.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    September 4, 2010 at 6:02 pm

    @Stillwater:
    “In fairness” was a rhetorical throw away line. I actually don’t give two shits about Conor. Run over him with a Zamboni if you like, for all I care.

  82. 82.

    Stillwater

    September 4, 2010 at 6:12 pm

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: I agree with that historical account, especially the idea that at times competing parties could agree on specific issues. I also agree that those times have past. Part of the problem resulting from this is that Dems continue to believe, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that a good argument can persuade a conservative to change their mind. About this I wanna say: look, recent history has demonstrated that conservatives are immune to countervailing evidence. Fact and argument no longer matter to them. They’re not approaching policy issues within the same (rational) parameters as we are. They’ve shown this, time and again.

  83. 83.

    Stillwater

    September 4, 2010 at 6:14 pm

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ: “In fairness” was a rhetorical throw away line. I actually don’t give two shits about Conor. Run over him with a Zamboni if you like, for all I care.

    No, I got that. I was trying to make a joke about him getting pissy about a rational explanation for his craziness. Lulllzzzzz.

  84. 84.

    Nick

    September 4, 2010 at 6:36 pm

    @Shawn in ShowMe:

    An attempt to shutdown a major employer in this economic climate has backfire written all over it.

    with the endless drumbeat of “This is happening because Obama refuses to accept his agenda lost in 2010” from the media, that’s unlikely.

  85. 85.

    Nick

    September 4, 2010 at 6:38 pm

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:

    Dems need to get over the idea that they are dealing with an opposition with which any sort of deal can be reached.

    Our government is designed in a way that requires a deal be reached with an opposition. It’s stupid, idiotic and counterproductive, but it is what it is and if you want Dems to get over it, fight to change the system.

  86. 86.

    Nick

    September 4, 2010 at 6:40 pm

    @mclaren:

    If Obama and the Democrats had used those tactics, we’d have a nationalized single-payer health care system and we’d have been out of Iraq and Afghanistan in 2004 and the Penagon’s torture and assassination programs would have ended 8 years ago.

    what are you in and can I have some?

  87. 87.

    Nick

    September 4, 2010 at 6:41 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    “Mean Republicans wouldn’t let me govern!” isn’t really a winning message.

    tell that to Bill Clinton.

  88. 88.

    Corner Stone

    September 4, 2010 at 6:46 pm

    @Nick:

    tell that to Bill Clinton.

    I could be wrong but considering 6.9% unemployment in 1993 was the highest Clinton faced, I somehow don’t think it’s gonna hold up this time around.

  89. 89.

    Nick

    September 4, 2010 at 6:54 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    I could be wrong but considering 6.9% unemployment in 1993 was the highest Clinton faced, I somehow don’t think it’s gonna hold up this time around.

    Well no, and the public was a lot smarter then than now. and there was no Fox, no Glenn Beck, CNN actually had integrity.

  90. 90.

    Corner Stone

    September 4, 2010 at 7:07 pm

    @Nick: If you boil it all down, there is one thing a US President is supposed to do. Whether they have the actual power to effect change or not, it’s the only thing the voters will really rise up about.
    And that’s employment. People with jobs and paychecks can waste their time getting fired up about homosexuals, guns or God. But people without jobs only care about one fucking thing.
    This WH either does not understand that, or does not care about that.
    Because everyone here can scream til they’re blue in the face, but there’s only one thing that’s going to matter 60 days from now.

  91. 91.

    Frank

    September 4, 2010 at 7:21 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    I could be wrong but considering 6.9% unemployment in 1993 was the highest Clinton faced, I somehow don’t think it’s gonna hold up this time around.

    Oh when people notice that they can no longer visit Yellowstone etc, they will blame whoever shut it down, ie the GOP. Or when they don’t receive their SS check, they will blame whoever is responsible, ie the GOP.

    This issue has little with unemployment and more to do with people getting pissed when what they need from the government is no longer there.

  92. 92.

    Frank

    September 4, 2010 at 7:23 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    This WH either does not understand that, or does not care about that.

    OK – what do you want them to do and how will you get 60 votes to implement it? You can blame Obama all you want, but a Howard Dean or a Dennis Kucinich would have faced the very same issue.

  93. 93.

    Corner Stone

    September 4, 2010 at 7:38 pm

    @Frank: “Nothing can be done!”

  94. 94.

    Corner Stone

    September 4, 2010 at 7:40 pm

    @Frank: IMO, this is completely off the rails.
    How the hell are they going to visit a National Park when they have no money or income?

  95. 95.

    Frank

    September 4, 2010 at 7:50 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    IMO, this is completely off the rails.
    How the hell are they going to visit a National Park when they have no money or income?

    Hyperbole much? Do you really think that not a single American can afford to visit a National Park? I visited one last month and I can assure I was not the only one there.

    Once regular folks with jobs get impacted by the government shutdown, they too will react against the GOP. Just like back in the mid 90’s…

  96. 96.

    Anne Laurie

    September 4, 2010 at 7:58 pm

    @Corner Stone:
    __

    How the hell are they going to visit a National Park when they have no money or income?

    Part of the anti-Newt backlash, as I remember those days, came when people realized that Grandma’s Social Security check and Daddy’s park ranger check and even Mom’s tips at the diner across from the national park actually came from the government, an idea that had willfully been allowed to slip out of the general consciousness. As the ‘Get the Government Out of My Medicare’ morans demonstrate, the connection between the nameless, faceless bureaucrats and the appearance of money in individual citizens’ pockets has once again been allowed to erode from public consciousness…

  97. 97.

    Yutsano

    September 4, 2010 at 7:58 pm

    @Frank: Even in 10% unemployment (or even going by the U6 16.7%) that still means there is a vast majority that are still working. Uneasy, because neighbors and family are suffering, but there are still employed Americans. And yes they visit national parks, have relatives on Social Security, and recognize how government is supposed to function for them. Now on that score Obama needs to do a lot better, but we are not in the Second Depression, but it is a very bumpy ride.

  98. 98.

    Corner Stone

    September 4, 2010 at 8:17 pm

    @Frank: Alright. I’ll just say that I have drastically changed my extra curricular spending over the last 18 months. I guess that’s anecdotal at the end of the day.
    For example, I chose a driving distance vacation for my son and I this summer as opposed to something out of state. I’ve also been dying to buy a LCD TV for the main room and move the 32in to the bedroom, but I figure if it still works it’s solid.
    And I’m employed with a mas o menos solid job for the next 2 years. After that who knows.
    I can tell you I’ve been focusing on my belt tightening, so if the worst happens I have an extended cushion.
    And if someone like me who expects to (please Lord) be employed for 24 months is concerned, what do you think a large percentage of people are thinking?

  99. 99.

    Corner Stone

    September 4, 2010 at 8:17 pm

    @Yutsano: Unfortunately, I know too many people with responsibilities who are looking for work right now.

  100. 100.

    Corner Stone

    September 4, 2010 at 8:20 pm

    @Anne Laurie: I can’t exactly tell what your argument here is.
    People realize who is obstructing? Or people get frustrated and take it out on who’s in front of them?

  101. 101.

    Corner Stone

    September 4, 2010 at 8:22 pm

    @Frank: Are you retired by any chance?

  102. 102.

    General Stuck

    September 4, 2010 at 8:22 pm

    @Corner Stone: Here Cornflake, are a couple of smart pills, take them and recite Mary Had a Little Lamb ten times, and you will understand stuff. Swear to Gawd.

  103. 103.

    E.D. Kain

    September 4, 2010 at 8:26 pm

    Suffice to say, I’m not voting for divided government….

  104. 104.

    Yutsano

    September 4, 2010 at 8:26 pm

    @Corner Stone: I’m gonna take a page from ED here.

    :: ducks ::

    Now hear me out: we all know that the unemployment situation is not evenly distributed amongst the states. It’s not evenly distributed within the states. The real trick is figuring out how to get everything back to a healthy economy in our local areas while recognizing we can’t just go back to where we were. I have zero problem with the federal government financing this through grants or loans or what have you, but let’s find solutions that will work for our localities. I don’t think there is or should be a blanket national answer here. Now getting anything past the do-nothings is another matter.

    @E.D. Kain: Heh. I just had a speak of the devil moment there.

  105. 105.

    LibertarianAtheist

    September 4, 2010 at 8:32 pm

    Obama’s too squeaky clean to be personally destroyed

    Oh my God. Of course, if you’re talking about any way that anybody in this country will ever care, like cheating on his wife or something, then yeah, but still. If the GOP were to impeach Obama due to his assassination program, thus causing the Democratic elite to retaliate by prosecuting Bush and Cheney, that would be awesome and quite frankly one of the most amazing things to ever happen in American history, but our populace is far too enslaved to the elites for that to ever happen, just like the elites and those in power like it.

  106. 106.

    Corner Stone

    September 4, 2010 at 8:35 pm

    @Yutsano: I am afraid I do not understand your response.

  107. 107.

    mclaren

    September 4, 2010 at 9:03 pm

    @Nick:

    Our government is designed in a way that requires a deal be reached with an opposition.

    This is just flat out not true. This is the opposite of observed reality. It contradicts the facts.

    The drunk-driving C student and his Republican congress steamrolled right over the Democrats, and they did for 8 long years. No deals. No compromises. No negotation. Just freeze the opposition out, turn them out of their congressional offices and put ’em in the basement (which literally happened), shut off the lights and kill their mics when they try to hold meetings, kill their funding, refuse to let them introduce bills.

    What planet are you people on?

    Don’t you realize that for 8 long years not making a deal or negotiating or even letting the Democrats speak on the floor of the congress to object to bills was the way things worked in Washington?

  108. 108.

    DougJ

    September 4, 2010 at 9:18 pm

    @E.D. Kain:

    The whole exchange was brilliant. You listed a bunch of specific policy positions and he comes back with some airy-fairy stuff about divided government. Honestly, the back-and-forth was a better illustration of why I vote Democrat than anything I could put into words.

  109. 109.

    mclaren

    September 4, 2010 at 9:25 pm

    @Yutsano:

    The real trick is figuring out how to get everything back to a healthy economy in our local areas while recognizing we can’t just go back to where we were.

    Good luck with that one, sunshine. There is no getting back to a healthy economy. From now on, offshoring of high-wage high-skills jobs accelerates. That means if you’re not unemployed for over a year yet, wait a couple of years — you will be.

    You’re a surgeon?

    A robot is going to take your job.

    You’re a PhD doing materials science research?

    A PhD in Guandong providence is going to take your job and make three dollars an hour doing it and be damn glad to get the money.

    You’re a web designer?

    Some kid in India is going to take your job. And he’ll work 19 hours a day to get it done on time.

    You’re an accountant, a radiologist who reads X rays, a mechanical engineer, a C programmer?

    People in the third world are going to take your job.

    This isn’t the bottom of the economic slide, bubba, this is only the start. Once the mass unemployment of white collar skilled workers begins, you’ll see the real panic begin.

    See, all that shit was fine when it happened to blue collar workers in the 80s. The college educated elites just laughed and laughed. Get a degree, they said. Re-train, they said. Learn new skills, they said.

    Whaddaya gonna do when your materials science PhD gets you a trip to the unemployment line at age 45 and nobody’s hiring McDonalds because you’re too old and you’re overqualified?

    America produces massively too many PhDs in this country for the job market, and the white collar elites are telling people the solution is “more education.”

    You want to get everything back to a healthy economy in America?

    Shut down the internet and kill off everyone in the third world. Short of that, yer outa luck, buckaroo. The American economy is Wile E. Coyote and it’s been pedaling frantically in midair for the last 2 years and now it’s starting to fall into that canyon.

    And it’s a long long way down.

  110. 110.

    slag

    September 4, 2010 at 9:31 pm

    That last sentence was laugh-out-loud genius. Admittedly, it’s a big, easy target. But that sentence struck the center with a thwap.

  111. 111.

    DougJ

    September 4, 2010 at 9:37 pm

    @slag:

    Thank you, slag. I was happy with it too.

  112. 112.

    Nick

    September 4, 2010 at 9:54 pm

    @mclaren:

    Don’t you realize that for 8 long years not making a deal or negotiating or even letting the Democrats speak on the floor of the congress to object to bills was the way things worked in Washington?

    Um, did you NOT pay attention to those 8 years…what do you think the Blue Dogs were? If the Blue Dogs didn’t agree, it didn’t get passed.

  113. 113.

    Bill Murray

    September 4, 2010 at 9:56 pm

    @General Stuck: recruiting for your army of dumb, General?

  114. 114.

    Cacti

    September 4, 2010 at 10:14 pm

    The last time the GOP tried the shutdown thing, it was a decisive loss for them and Newt ended up looking like a churlish prick.

  115. 115.

    NR

    September 4, 2010 at 10:32 pm

    @Corner Stone: These two words are the reason why I think Obama’s first two years have to be considered an unmitigated disaster.

    Obama could have destroyed the Republican party. At the time of his election, the Republicans were utterly despised by about 70% of the country, and the people were hungry for strong leadership in a new direction. Instead, Obama made the rehabilitation of the GOP his goddamned mission in life, co-opting and endorsing their policies, and filling his legislation with their ideas even as they would go on to vote against it as a bloc anyway.

    And so here we are.

  116. 116.

    General Stuck

    September 4, 2010 at 10:51 pm

    @Bill Murray: insults should make some sense varmint cong.

  117. 117.

    mclaren

    September 4, 2010 at 11:31 pm

    @Nick:

    Um, did you NOT pay attention to those 8 years…what do you think the Blue Dogs were? If the Blue Dogs didn’t agree, it didn’t get passed.

    Delusional gibberish. You’re rewriting history.

    In reality, the blue dogs only entered congress when the hardcore deep south Republicans got voted out of office back in 2006. Blue dogs weren’t a force to be reckoned with from 2001 to 2006 because there weren’t enough of ’em.

    General Crackpot Fake Name is always recruiting for the army of dumb. He and Mnemosyne will doubtless be doing thrillseeker liquor store holdups with BORN TO LOSE tattoos on their foreheads in preparation for their frontal assault on “th’ crazeh libtards who’re critcizin’ mah heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeero Obama!”

    The closest equivalent to General Crackpot Fake Name and Mnemosyne outside this forum is McArthur Wheeler, the `lemon juice bandit’ who doused himself with lemon juice in the belief that it would prevent bank cameras from recording him, and then robbed several banks while looking directly at the camera and smiling.

  118. 118.

    RadioOne

    September 4, 2010 at 11:41 pm

    I don’t know why you dismiss the possibility of impeachment if the GOP takes the House. The teabaggers are already pretty amped, and their enthusiasm for taking Obama out will be exponentially intensified if the GOP wins Congress. Impeachment only takes a majority. I doubt their ideology could be satisfied with shutting down the government as a “compromise” when it would only take a majority of Republicans to impeach a President.

  119. 119.

    General Stuck

    September 4, 2010 at 11:45 pm

    @mclaren: You check your toilet bowl for splosives lately, MCLAREN. This is important for folks who talk out there ass.

  120. 120.

    General Stuck

    September 4, 2010 at 11:47 pm

    Obama could have destroyed the Republican party.

    Filed under insane expectations.

  121. 121.

    mclaren

    September 4, 2010 at 11:50 pm

    @General Stuck:

    This is important for folks who talk out there ass.

    LOL. Get back to us when you learn the difference between “their” (belongs to them) and “there” (that place over yonder).

    General Crackpot Fake Name is just the gift that keeps giving, isn’t he?

  122. 122.

    mclaren

    September 4, 2010 at 11:52 pm

    @RadioOne:

    I don’t know why you dismiss the possibility of impeachment if the GOP takes the House.

    Because the House can draw up articles of impeachment, but the impeachment trial must be held in the senate. If the senate isn’t controlled by the GOP, it’s no go, buckaroo.

  123. 123.

    General Stuck

    September 4, 2010 at 11:55 pm

    @mclaren: Dear gawd, a typo. You big genius. Now carry on with the psychotic firebagging Mr. Luther.

  124. 124.

    DougJ

    September 4, 2010 at 11:58 pm

    @RadioOne:

    I’m not dismissing it, I’m “walking back” my earlier predictions that it was a sure thing.

  125. 125.

    Kat

    September 5, 2010 at 12:12 am

    …a shut-down today could be much more destructive than the one that happened before; economically, shutting down the government during the Bush/Reagan boom of the mid ‘90s didn’t do that much damage, but doing so during the Obama recession just might.

    Best news I’ve heard lately — because if it gets much worse, tens of millions more people will have to cancel their cable tv, which means they’ll no longer be watching Faux News 24/7.

  126. 126.

    Nick

    September 5, 2010 at 12:14 am

    @mclaren:

    the blue dogs only entered congress when the hardcore deep south Republicans got voted out of office back in 2006. Blue dogs weren’t a force to be reckoned with from 2001 to 2006 because there weren’t enough of ‘em.

    The Blue Dog Coalition was formed in 199-fucking-5, and were made up of those conservative Southern Dems who survived the 1994 elections. In 2005, 32 of the 36 of them became the deciding votes on Bush’s bankruptcy bill. It was the Blue Dogs that gave Bush the votes he needed on his tax cuts because there were members of his own party (Chafee, McCain for example) to go along with it.

    What hardcore deep south Republican got defeated in 2006. I can’t think of one except Charles Taylor in NC-11. In fact, Democrats nearly lose two Georgia Dems that year. No other Deep South congressman lost that year.

    Why do you insist on lying?

  127. 127.

    mclaren

    September 5, 2010 at 12:14 am

    @General Stuck:

    Now carry on with the psychotic firebagging Mr. Luther.

    Do you mean “Luthor”? As in Lex Luthor, the villain from Superman comics?

    General Crackpot Fake Name is so illiterate it’s hard to discern what he’s saying. If he says “insect,” does he really mean “incest”? If he says “amphibious,” did he intend “ambidextrous”?

    Who knows?

    More to the point, who cares?

  128. 128.

    mclaren

    September 5, 2010 at 12:20 am

    @Nick:

    You’re an ignorant kook. Stop lying.

    Blue dogs have been around for a while but they haven’t been a force in congress prior to the mid-2000s. You can argue whether it was 2005 or 2006. Whatever.

    Point is, the blue dogs are going away. Now that they’ve voted against a large enough stimulus to save the economy from collapsing, their constituents are going to hammer ’em and wipe ’em out. So the blue dogs will vanish this November and few will be left in congress.

    Blue dogs won’t be a factor after November 2010 because they’re getting replaced with hardcore teabaggers by enraged constituents. So talking about blue dogs having a role in impeaching Obama is nonsense.

    And talking about blue dogs having a role in doing much of anything prior to the narrow period 2005-2006 to 2010-2011 is also unbelievable tripe.

    Blue dogs were a blip on the radar scope. Now they’re going away. Discussing their role in anything after this November just reveals your ignorance.

  129. 129.

    Nick

    September 5, 2010 at 12:31 am

    @mclaren:

    You’re an ignorant kook. Stop lying. Blue dogs have been around for a while but they haven’t been a force in congress prior to the mid-2000s.

    Oh so now you admit they’ve been around awhile. Good, so maybe you’ll admit the role they played in repealing Glass-Steagall in 1999.

    Blue dogs won’t be a factor after November 2010 because they’re getting replaced with hardcore teabaggers by enraged constituents. So talking about blue dogs having a role in impeaching Obama is nonsense.

    FACT: Blue Dogs are the ones polling well. They’ll be around in 2011. But that’s irrelevant, because i never talked about their role in impeaching Obama, I don’t even know where you got that from. (Although it’s interesting to note the 5 Blue Dogs who voted to impeach Bill Clinton in 1998, when, as you said, they were irrelevant. On the third count, they made the difference between him being impeached and not impeached http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1998/roll545.xml). i talked about their role in passing bipartisan legislation in the Bush years since you said Democrats got “rolled” by Republicans and passed things without them, I proved to you that was wrong. Bush got nothing passed without at least a couple of Democratic voters. I implore you to find something he did, or shut the fuck up about your revisionist lying history of 2001-2007. When he did attempt to do so without Democrats, it didn’t happen (see: Social Security)

    But I’ll still go back to what you said here;

    the blue dogs only entered congress when the hardcore deep south Republicans got voted out of office back in 2006.

    Name them or go away troll.

  130. 130.

    DFer

    September 5, 2010 at 12:37 am

    @Nick: damn man, that’s some quality pwning.

  131. 131.

    Nick

    September 5, 2010 at 12:44 am

    @mclaren:

    Blue dogs were a blip on the radar scope. Now they’re going away. Discussing their role in anything after this November just reveals your ignorance.

    once again, I never discussed their role post November. I discussed their role during Bush’s presidency. I have no idea where you’re getting this from.

    I mean, are you ok?

  132. 132.

    General Stuck

    September 5, 2010 at 1:06 am

    @mclaren: Soshulist grammar Nazi.

  133. 133.

    General Stuck

    September 5, 2010 at 1:11 am

    @mclaren: I think there are about 50 of them now, or self identified as such. It is true that many of them will get replaced by wingnuts, but hardly all of them. So there Mr. Luther, it is a zero sum game that though there will be less of them after 2010, there will also be less democrats when they are gone, provided dems hold onto the house, and if they don’t the point is moot.

    So even a few blue dogs will still have power because it will take less of them to thwart a narrower dem majority.

  134. 134.

    General Stuck

    September 5, 2010 at 1:19 am

    @Nick:

    I mean, are you ok? .

    air pocket in his Thorazine drip.

  135. 135.

    bob h

    September 5, 2010 at 6:47 am

    How does an economy running close to stall speed react to a government shutdown? Probably the coup de grace for the economy.

  136. 136.

    Frank

    September 5, 2010 at 9:07 am

    @Corner Stone:

    Are you retired by any chance?

    Nope. I’m still a working guy.

    BTW – I get part of your argument. Most people may still be employed, but they are still worried that they may soon not have a job. I fall in this category. Or they are simple under-employed and can’t pay their bills.

    But, that still leaves an awful lot of people who would be very upset if the govt shuts down. What about the retirees who no longer could count on Social Security or the national park visit?

  137. 137.

    mclaren

    September 5, 2010 at 10:58 am

    @Nick:

    DFer claims:

    damn man, that’s some quality pwning.

    No, that’s some ignorant lying.

    Let’s dissect Nick’s lies one by one.

    Nick falsely claims:

    FACT: Blue Dogs are the ones polling well. They’ll be around in 2011.

    In fact, the opposite is true, and the poll numbers prove it.

    Leaving aside the small group of dead-in-the-water “probable switch” seats,* the two figures reveal a rather astonishing, but virtually identical distribution of the voting records of House incumbents currently occupying what Wasserman ranks as either “toss-up” (27) or “also competitive” (29) seats. The mean ranking for both groups (186, 187) is basically the same–and this despite the slight weighing down of that average of a handful of liberal outliers among both groups, including four “toss-up” seats where the member has a vote rating lower than 128 and two such seats among the “also competitive” group. The pattern is clear: Some of the most conservative members of the House Democratic caucus, those with vote scores that rank them in the high 100s or low 200s of the 256-member caucus, are in trouble. Heck, Alabama’s Bobby Bright is actually the 264th most liberal member in a House that only has 256 Democratic-held seats!

    What can we conclude from this data?

    1. Blue Dogs or other House Democrats who often vote with them are going to account for the vast majority of House Democratic losses this November, which is not a real shocker to anyone following the situation closely;

    Source: “Blue Dogs Be Dog-Gone Soon,” Tom Schaller, fivethirtyeight website, 19 August 2010.

    That’s Nick’s first lie. It’s an ignorant lie, because Nick obviously hasn’t bothered to look at the polls. There are currently 58 Democrats in the Blue Dog caucus. The poll numbers show most of them will be gone in November 2010. So Nick is clearly and obviously lying when he says “the Blue Dogs are the ones who are polling well.”

    Now let’s move on to Nicks’ second lie.

    But that’s irrelevant, because i never talked about their role in impeaching Obama…

    In comment 87, you remarked in response to someone’s comment “Mean Republicans wouldn’t let me govern is not a good response’ with the retort “Tell that to Bill Clinton.”

    Bill Clinton got impeached by the Republicans. That’s the primary reason for Clinton’s rise in the polls t the end of his second term — the Republicans overreached by impeaching him.

    Then in comment 89 you go on to mention

    Well no, and the public was a lot smarter then than now. and there was no Fox, no Glenn Beck, CNN actually had integrity.

    Talking about a Democratic president impeached for no reason and then mentioning that things have gotten worse because the pubic is dumber and we’ve now got Glenn Beck and Fox News, raises the clearly obvious implication of Obama’s impeachment.

    That’s clearly and obviously where I got it from, and it’s clearly and obviously what you were implying.

    So your claim that you never implied anything about Obama’s possible impeachment is Nick’s second lie.

    Now let’s move on to Nick’s third lie.

    Nick claims that the Blue Dog democrats were instrumental in getting Bill Cinton impeached:

    5 Blue Dogs who voted to impeach Bill Clinton in 1998, when, as you said, they were irrelevant. On the third count, they made the difference between him being impeached and not impeached…

    That’s the same kind of obvious lie as the claim that the voters who left hanging chads in Florida were responsible for electing George W. Bush president. No, what was responsible for electing George W. Bush president was an electorate split so closely that people were reduced to inspecting hanging chads in Florida because the goddamn vote was so close. It was within a few thousand, which for a nationwide vote, is essentially a deadlock. That’s what was responsible for electing George W. Bush in 2000.

    Likewise, what was responsible for impeaching Bill Clinton was Republican control of the House of representatives. You single out the 5 Blue Dog democrats — but why them? Why not single out Newt Gingrich and his Contract With America in 1994? That’s what really impeached Bill Clinton, the massive takeover of the House of Representatives by Republicans to the point where the Repubs got within 5 votes of impeaching Clinton on the first round of voting.

    The remaining five votes could’ve come from anywhere. We’re talking about 5 votes out of 535 members of the House. 5 votes is less than 1%. That number of people can be peeled off of any opposition party once the voting gets that close. Clearly, singling out the Blue Dogs as responsible for Clinton’s impeachment is not only a lie, it’s a stupid and ignorant lie. Gingrich and the Republican machine were responsible for Clinton’s impeachment. If it hadn’t been the 5 Blue Dogs who changed their votes, it would’ve been another 5 Demos because the Republicans had gotten so close in the first ballot.

    So that’s Nick’s third lie.

    Moving on to Nick’s fourth lie, Nick claims:

    i talked about their role in passing bipartisan legislation in the Bush years since you said Democrats got “rolled” by Republicans and passed things without them, I proved to you that was wrong.

    No, you lied — but as usual, you didn’t prove a damn thing.

    The fact that a couple of Demos voted for everything that Bush passed proves nothing. Out of 535 members of the House, you’d expect one or two Demos to vote for anything that comes down the pike. I can turn that around and “prove” that Obama supposedly broke the Republican coalition because one or two Repubs voted for everything Obama got passed in the House.

    But that “proof” is bullshit, because everyone knows as a matter of plain fact that the Republicans have essentially voted as a block. One or two Republicans in the house occasionally split off, but as a matter of practical fact, the Republicans have shown extraordinary party unity. And the proof of that claim is that we’re now deadlocked on another stimulus package. So Nick’s kind of alleged “prove” doesn’t prove anything — otherwise, we’d be talking about Obama passing another stimulus package. But he can’t because regardless of whether one or two Repubs vot3e for Obama, the rank and file Repubs will vote in a block against it, and that’s what kills the possibility of more economic stimulus.

    Likewise, the rank and file Democrats voted against Clinton’s impeachment and it didn’t matter that one or two Demos voted for it in the House because the Repubs had overwhelming numbers. The Republicans steamrolled the Democrats in 1994 and swept the House. That’s what caused Bill Clinton’s impeachment, not the votes of one or two Blue Dogs.

    Moving on Nick’s fifth lie, Nick implicitly claims that Obama hasn’t been rolled by dismissing my statement that “Obama got rolled” on health care and Afghanistan and the Wall Street bailout. Nick claims the problem Obama faced was that he got undermined by Blue Dog Democrats, not that Obama was a naive and inexperienced legislator who was thrust into a seat too big for him, and that he got scammed and taken and rolled by the big boys in the Pentagon and the medical-insurance cartels and Wall Street.

    Let’s take a look at how Obama got rolled. Obama got rolled by the U.S. military and he got rolled by the health care cartels and he got rolled by by Wall Street.

    Here’s Bernard Finel on Obama and the military:

    I am not sure Obama is, in fact, wholly in charge on Afghanistan. I think a case could be made that he’s been maneuvered, step-by-step, through biased and incomplete military advice to his current position. He seems to have been surprised by McChrystal’s troop request, though it was implicit in the white paper on Afghanistan he approved in March 2009. Did no one mention that at the time? Proponents of a CT approach to Afghanistan could not get the DoD to properly staff out the option. At every step of the process, there has been an process bias in favor of escalation. Why? Who is driving that?

    Source: “Who is to blame for our civil-military dysfunction?” Bernard Finel, 3 September 2010, fabiusmaximus website.

    Bernard Finel is Associate Professor of National Strategy at the National War College. It’s possible he knows a thing or two about the military. When Finel says “[Obama’s] been maneuver, step-b-step, through biased and incomplete military advice to his current position,” that carries some weight.

    It also supports my claim that, in plain language, Obama got rolled by the military.

    So what’s your expertise on the national strategy, Nick? How many advanced degrees do you have in that subject? Do you teach at the National War College?

    No?

    Maybe we should pay attention to Bernard Finel, and ignore you, troll.

    Moving on to the question of whether Obama got rolled by Wall Street, here’s this report of Obama’s reaction to the Wall Street bonuses in 2009 that turned out to be bigger than the bonuses they gave themselves in 2008:

    Barack Obama was “incredulous” at what he was hearing, said one of his top economic advisers. The president had spent his first year in office overseeing the biggest government bailout of the financial industry in American history. Together with Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, he had kept Wall Street afloat on a trillion-dollar tide of taxpayer money. But the banks were barely lending, and the economy was still mired in high unemployment. And now, in December 2009, the holiday news had started to filter out of the canyons of lower Manhattan: Wall Street’s year-end bonuses would actually be larger in 2009 than they had been in 2007, the year prior to the catastrophe. “Wait, let me get this straight,” Obama said at a White House meeting that December. “These guys are reserving record bonuses because they’re profitable, and they’re profitable only because we rescued them.”

    “How Wall Street Rolled Obama,” Michael Hirsh, Newsweek, August 29, 2010.

    What’s your evidence that the above information is a lie, Nick?

    It’s been reported in Newsweek. Where’s your proof the reporter is lying?

    Tick…tick…tick…

    No?

    No evidence to contradict Obama’s incredulous reaction to those Wall Street bonuses after the bailout?

    Then maybe we should believe the reporters at Newsweek instead of you, troll.

    For evidence that the health care cartels rolled Obama on health care reform, let’s take a look at what Obama said as a candidate and compare it to what he wound up signing in the non-reform HCR bill:

    “If a mandate was the solution, we could try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody buy a house,” he said on a CNN morning show on Super Tuesday during the election. “The reason they don’t have a house is they don’t have the money.

    That was back in 2008. In 2010, Obama signed a bill with mandates. Gee…you think he got scammed and had to make the best of a bad situation?

    Then there’s Obama’s complaints about the lack of competition between health care insurers — yet his HCR non-reform bill removed the provisions that would have alleviated that problem.

    Here’s what an analyst said about the U.S. health insurance industry during a Goldman Sachs conference call for investors:

    “Not only is price competition down from year ago (when we had characterized last year’s price competition as being down from the prior year), but trend or (healthcare) inflation is also up and appears to be rising. The incumbent carriers seem more willing than ever to walk away from existing business resulting in some carrier changes…”

    Source: “Obama points to lack of insurance competition, a problem his plan no longer solves,” Firedoglake, 8 march 2010.

    So once again, looks like Obama got rolled, doesn’t it?

    Where’s your evidence that Obama didn’t say the things he clearly and plainly did in that CNN interview, Nick?

    Where’s your proof that Obama didn’t complain about insurers’ lack of competition and then watch as the provision that would’ve prevented that problem got stripped out of the health care bill?

    No?

    No proof?

    Nothing?

    Then maybe we should believe what Obama himself said instead of listening to your lies, troll.

    Okay.

    Let’s summarize:

    I’ve proved point by point that essentially everything Nick has said is either a stupid lie or a distortion or ignorant nonsense.

    I’ve debunked Nick’s lies in detail, point for point.

    I’ve shown that Nick is the lowest kind of troll, making sh|t up and twisting facts to support his crazy counterfactual claims.

    Now Nick demands that I provide him with further evidence.

    Fine.

    Before I do, it’s time for Nick to provide some evidence. He’s used the old Newt Gingrich/Joe McCarthy trick of demanding more evidence and more evidence and more evidence and yet more evidence, without end, on and on and on to exhaustion, from someone he accuses…without ever having to provide any evidence himself. It’s an old scam. Exhaust your opponent by demanding endless proof, no amount of evidence is ever enough…so the opponent collapses and falls silent, destroyed by the never-ending demands for more and more and more evidence.

    Since that’s obviously a scam, time to cut it short.

    So before I respond, Nick, here’s one for you:

    You falsely claimed that the Blue Dogs are the ones who are polling well, in direct contradiction to the polls discussed at the Five Thirty Eight website, which prove that the Blue Dogs are going down for the count and will get crushed in November.

    So provide us with direct links to detailed polling data on all 58 of the Blue Dog Democrats to prove your claim, or stand revealed as an ignorant liar and a troll.

    Pwned?

    No, clowns, you just found out who got pwned.

    C’mon, Nick. Put up or shut up.

    Give us direct links to those poll numbers for each of those 58 Blue Dogs or we all know you’re an ignorant lying troll.

  138. 138.

    Glen Tomkins

    September 5, 2010 at 11:26 am

    The point is not to shut down the govt

    It wasn’t in 1995, it won’t be this time. What the Contract with America con men tried, and what the Tea Partiers are talking abut trying again, is to use the budget/funding authorizatioin process to end-run the usual way we pass and repeal laws.

    Take Obamacare as an example. In fact, it is the example they are talking about right now of a law that they would end-run in this fashion. The system labored mightily for almost two years to get all three planets — Senate, House and WH — in line so that we could have some sort of HCR enacted into law. The baggers know that they will probably have control of just the House in 2011 when the new Congress convenes, so there is no way they could get all three to agree to a repeal of Obamacare. The solution for them is to use the annual re-authorization of funding process to deny the authorized funding to Obamacare. It would only take the House, all by itself, refusing to fund Obamacare, to kill its implementation.

    Now, presumably they would also want to kill other hated programs and functions besides Obamacare, and even the jobs of hated administration officials, by this means of simply de-funding them. You could say that they want to shut down these narrowly selected parts of the govt, but they don’t want the whole thing shut down. Shutting the entire govt down, the vital functions that everybody wants, is what both sides threaten if the raft of funding bills do not contain the things they want funded, but neither side wants them shut down permanently. These vital functions, important to both sides, are like hostages that both sides use to try to force the other side to yield on their particular agenda items.

    To be sure, the baggers might try to use the threat of a general shutdown to get their package of spending bills passed, with its intended permanent shut down of highly select parts of the govt. That might work, but it might backfire on them as in 1995, when their bluff was called, and the Dems let the govt shut down rather than pass the R spending bills. The Rs caved quickly, before any real damage or disruption, but it still cost them in public opinion. It’s hard to imagine that a prolonged general shutdown, one that lasted long enough to be felt in the broader economy, would be anything but much worse for them. A prolonged general shut down is clearly not what they want.

    Their aim could be to, this time, pin blame for any shut down on the Dems, so that they would have to capitulate, and the shut down would end with Dems acceding to the R spending bills to allow the govt to resume operations. That would be a gamble, but they may think that deficit concern, the desire to trim “wasteful” govt spending by any means, is greater this time, or that they will handle the PR better this time because they’ve been working a lot on their Wurlitzer since 1995.

    But they could also structure the spending bills so as to get the hostage of vital govt functions off the table as a weapon either side could use by threatening a shut down. They could split the funding bills into one set that authorizes funds for all of the core, vital, functions and personnel that both sides want to see go on, and another set to fund controversial items. Of course, the House’s cut, the division they would make between core and controversial, would tend label everythig they want the govt doing as “core”, while everything that only the Dems want as “controversial”. If the Dems went along with the idea of passing the core stuff first, in order to take it off the table and avoid the possibility of a shut down of vital services, at that point the Dems would have given up all leverage to ever get any of the “controversial” items out of the House.

    If the Reps try the funding end run this time, they will use a massive propaganda campaign about this split in funding between core and controversial spending as the thing that will prevent the govt shut down that the Dems might otherwise use, illegitimately, as a tactic to get their way in their defense of all that “wasteful” govt spending. Get the vital functions off the table, they will say, out of the line of fire, so that the squabbling over the controversial stuff can proceed without hurting the general public. That line would be difficult to argue against. It would probably work.

  139. 139.

    Nick

    September 6, 2010 at 2:34 am

    @mclaren: Really, this is a hot mess, i don’t even know where to begin.

    first of all, the “blue dogs be-gone soon” article you link to lists open seats being vacated by retiring Blue Dogs by folks Marion Berry, Brad Ellsworth, Dennis Moore, etc. So, no, these Blue Dogs won’t lose because they’re not running, but Bright, Minnick, Shuler and Boucher have all seen strong poll numbers. Just go to Swing State Project and look at them.

    I don’t even know what the where to start with the impeachment thing, but this;

    The fact that a couple of Demos voted for everything that Bush passed proves nothing. Out of 535 members of the House, you’d expect one or two Demos to vote for anything that comes down the pike. I can turn that around and “prove” that Obama supposedly broke the Republican coalition because one or two Repubs voted for everything Obama got passed in the House.

    is interesting, because Obama’s top three pieces of legislation got ZERO republican votes in the House. ZERO. Had he gotten one or two, yeah, he would’ve broken the Republican coalition. Bush never passed a single piece of legislation with ZERO Democratic votes, Obama did.

    the rest is just, well, a hot mess indeed.

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