All of these folks can expect primary challenges from grade a wingnuts:
Eight Republican senators on Tuesday voted to preserve earmark spending despite pressure from the Tea Party movement.
Sens. Thad Cochran (Miss.), Susan Collins (Maine), James Inhofe (Okla.), Dick Lugar (Ind.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Richard Shelby (Ala.) voted against an amendment to food-safety legislation that would have enacted a two-year ban on the spending items. Retiring Sen. George Voinovich (Ohio) and defeated Sen. Bob Bennett (Utah) also voted against it.
Not quite sure how you out-wingnut Shelby, Cochran, and Inhofe, but I’m sure the party of Palin, Miller, Angle, and O’Donnell will find a way. And then David Broder can write a column about the lack of ideological diversity and the dangers of ideological purity… in the Democratic party.
BTW- It is sure going to be fun watching Murkowski give the GOP a middle finger at every opportunity.
Redshirt
Why would Murkowski be anti-GOP at this point? Sure, she lost the primary, but all’s forgiven, right? I assume behind the scenes she was getting plenty of help from the real players in the GOP all along.
Roger Moore
I don’t know if this is an example of her giving the GOP the middle finger at every opportunity. There’s no way she could have won a write-in campaign if she weren’t an expert at bringing home the pork for Alaska, and she wants to preserve every tool available for doing so.
dr. bloor
Collins is the only one on that list with a real problem, but she’s getting primaried anyways.
Mike Goetz
I suspect Dick Lugar is limbering up that finger as well. This START disgrace has him apoplectic.
Benjamin Cisco
I’m interested to see if she maintains her anti-GOTPer stance on DADT, abortion, etc. If she intends to fold her hand and fall in line with the wingers, that’s where her tell will be found.
Suck It Up!
Honestly, I don’t think she will. She’ll fall in line. I would like to be very wrong however.
Mike Goetz
Although I will say that McConell never really wanted a ban anyway. So I don’t think he cares all that much. DeMint’s the one who got facialed.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
Here’s a question:
5 to 6 months from now, in mid spring, Congress will likely pass a earmark bill.
Should Obama veto it?
Earmarks are a mixed bag. Some projects have good utility and they’re stimulative. Other projects are boondoggles and nothing more than graft and corruption (see Randy “Duke” Cunningham/Ted Stevens). It’s hard to know how much of a given bill is economically positive and how much are just bridges to nowhere.
In the end, while a earmark bill may have as many as 1200 “projects” the total dollar amount is pittance of the discretionary spending. When ever McCain says stopping earmarks is the key to balancing the budget, every progressive laughs at him because the total spending is so small.
Earmarks are very unpopular with indies and a veto would be good politics.
So once again, should Obama veto the upcoming earmark bill?
Sputnik_Sweetheart
Right, because running a teabagger against Murkowski worked so well last time.
Dennis SGMM
@Roger Moore:
Correct me if I’m wrong: I didn’t think that the Tea Party did well enough in the last election to be considered a serious threat to sitting Republicans. Sure there were candidates who cozied up to the Tea Party. OTOH, if screwing sheep would have gained them more votes they’d have been cozying up to sheep. Once they discover that overthrowing the system in D.C. isn’t going to happen most of the Tea Party will likely go back to yelling at kids to get off of their lawns.
El Tiburon
Perhaps the unintended consequence of all of this insane Teabaggery is the less-insane Republicans will be more likely to find common ground with the Dems rather than their crazy, inbred in-laws.
freelancer
Inhofe’s TP challenger will take his “Global Warming is a Hoax!” bumper sticker energy policy and say “Not Good Enough! What Inhofe doesn’t know is that THE GLOBE is a hoax! Gawd sez the Earth is FLAT. I believe it. That’s all I need to know!” Boom, instant Senatorial campaign. In fact, I think I found the perfect candidate.
She will be sure to win Oklahoma (no offense, soonergrunt).
El Tiburon
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century):
How so? The House may pass one, but the Senate surely won’t.
Was it Rand Paul who already came out and said he’s just fine with earmarks?
Even the diehard teatards will quickly learn how life operates in DC. They can either party with the lowly riff-raff, or be wined and dined by the big-money guys.
Earmark reform is just another fart in the wind.
Geeno
I believe Murkowski will side with the GOP establishment against the Tea Party, not that she’ll turn on the GOP.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
I see sainted progressve Russ Feingold voted in favor of the earmark ban.
Sounds like he wants to run again in 2012 and is playing up to the rural types in his dairy state who hate earmarks.
it’s good politics, if not good economic policy. And yes, St. Russ isn’t above playing politics.
Roger Moore
@Dennis SGMM:
Maybe not everywhere, but in they definitely did well enough to primary incumbents in some of the more wingnutty states. Murkowski obviously lost her primary to the Tea Party backed Joe Miller, and Bob Bennett in Utah was also successfully primaried.
mantis
Snowe is scared shitless of the saltbaggers. She changed her mind on earmarks since voting for them in March. I wonder what kind of nut the Maine primary voters will pick to challenge her in 2012.
Shalimar
@dr. bloor: No, she isn’t the only one. Shelby, Cochran and Inhofe can all find themselves Bennetted if they stray too far from the tea party ideal. It is exactly the same situation, very safe states where a primary challenger would be guaranteed to win the general election.
And Lugar is toast if the START treaty passes. They will primary him for that betrayal, even if they really don’t have a clue why they are supposed to be against START.
Sputnik_Sweetheart
@mantis: I would imagine that LePage’s election probably has moderate Republicans like her worried.
Dennis SGMM
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century):
Would they be the same rural types whose dairy farms received a total of $1,148,283,594 in Dairy Program subsidies last year?
It’s only wrong when someone else gets government money.
Ash Can
Earmarks, hell. What about the 15 Republicans who voted in favor of the food safety bill? String ’em up!
/teahadist
SiubhanDuinne
@freelancer:
Wow, she IS a piece of work, isn’t she?
From your link:
I really never thought I’d say this, but YAY for the Oklahoma state senate.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Benjamin Cisco: Is Murkowski pro-choice? I can’t imagine her ‘middle finger’ will go much further than a few veiled insults to DeMint and making sure Mitch McConnell gives her a better seat than DeMint at the GOP caucus Christmas dinner
Zifnab
The Tea Party Revolution was funded by the Koch Brothers, Dick Army’s corporate buddies, and the Chamber of Commerce.
Bennett got ousted for supporting health care reform. Specter fled the party and was defeated after he failed to properly kow tow to anti-taxers. Crist got bagged when he voiced opposition to the oil lobby.
So long as you toe the line, the Tea Party will pass you by. Just smear some liberal blood on the doorstep and keep the faith. You’ll notice McCain made it through just fine.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
@El Tiburon: so you’re sayin you won’t complain if obama vetos an earmark bill.
nothing wrong with that. but I thought bloggies were against gimmicks.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
@Dennis SGMM: This.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mantis: I have never been able to find, in my own mind or in any political publication, a reason this woman even wants to be in the Senate. She doesn’t believe in anything, she doesn’t chase the spotlight like Lieberman, I don’t have much respect for her, but she strikes me as smarter than half of her colleagues–and I mean that to be a low threshold– why doesn’t she just go back to Maine count her money?
Zifnab
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century):
That Russ regularly competed for the mantel of “Most Liberal US Senator” with Bernie Sanders doesn’t make this kind of thing an indictment against Feingold. It’s an indictment against the entire rest of the Senate, that this guy is as liberal as any Senator is ever likely to get.
wengler
Earmarks is a good issue to run on in a country with an ignorant electorate. While the practice on its face appears to be highly corrupt, it is in fact just designating already appropriated money. If the solution to this is just passing more no-strings-attached block grants to states, then the earmarking will just go on at the state level.
If you want to stop a rainforest preserve in Iowa or a Cosmosphere in Kansas(it’s actually a very nice museum) then perhaps this should be done before the money is even spent. Politicians simply aren’t going to stop taking credit for bringing home the bacon, and it’s weird to see the Tea Party draw their arbitrary line here.
JZ
Murkowski will take every opportunity give Demint the middle finger, as she is now his sworn enemy. As long as he stays on the fringes of GOP Senate power, she won’t have to stick it to the party brass all too often.
Capri
@Shalimar:
In Indiana any person can vote in a primary. I’m registered as a Democrat, but I vote republican in primaries because that’s where the action is. Lugar is safe.
Brachiator
@Dennis SGMM:
The Tea Party exists to field candidates, to keep the GOP ideologically pure, and to keep the political conversation focused on extremely conservative positions.
In this they are succeeding. They have also gone to the next level. Where under Dubya, evangelicals and conservatives just voted and expected elected officials to do their bidding, the Tea Party People try to make “taking the country back” meaningful by fielding candidates they want.
If screwing sheep would work just as well, you would expect to find moderate and liberal Republicans among the Tea Party faithful, and people saying, “Gee, I can’t wait to do some bipartisan co-operating with President Obama.”
This is not happening.
Too many liberals and progressives, on the other hand, seem to be too busy basking in the juices of their own self-righteousness to have fielded new candidates in 2010, and aren’t doing much that I can see so far as we head toward 2012. Moderate Republicans and some Blue Dog Democrats got challenged or kicked to the curb in the mid term elections. They net gain was to the benefit of the right and the Tea Party People.
Democrats lost the House. You would think this would be a wake-up call. What’s the point of deriding the Tea Party and the GOP if you can’t get your own people elected?
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
@Zifnab:
And yet he voted for John Ashcroft for attorney General and John Roberts for the supreme court.
He voted against the FinReg bill and is against any kind of filibuster reform.
But perhaps the most revealing, St. Russ refused to sign the petition for the public option.
with liberals like this, who needs teabaggers.
The Grand Panjandrum
It will be interesting to see how many Senators are for earmarks (by having them put into legislation) after being against them.
El Tiburon
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century):
Uh, say what?
No, what I said is that an earmarks bill would never reach his desk.
But to your question: no, I won’t complain if he vetoes an earmark bill. Why should I? Trust me, the politicians will find a way to get that money to their districts one way or another if earmarks are miraculously banned.
Zandar
Shorter Pailn: “It’s a failure of our democracy that
Julian AssangeLisa Murkowski is allowed to continue to do this to America, and she must be dealt with.”El Tiburon
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century):
Ding-Ding-Ding! We have a winner for most asinine statement in the last 30 minutes here on Balloon Juice.
Yep: Russ Feingold is to teabaggers what Barack Obama is to socialism.
Feingold on the public option:
I’ve been fighting all year for a strong public option to compete with the insurance industry and bring health care spending down.” Feingold said in the statement. “I continued that fight during recent negotiations, and I refused to sign onto a deal to drop the public option from the Senate bill. Unfortunately, the lack of support from the administration made keeping the public option in the bill an uphill struggle. (Emphasis mine, not the Senator’s.) Removing the public option from the Senate bill is the wrong move, and eliminates $25 billion in savings. I will be urging members of the House and Senate who draft the final bill to make sure this essential provision is included.”
Oh, and that other staunch teabagger who agreed w/ Feingold: Bernie Sanders.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
@The Grand Panjandrum: actually what they do is vote for them in committee and then vote against them once the reach the floor for a final vote. Then they can claim to be against earmarks, but also bring home bacon and skim off the top.
Ron Paul has made an art of this particular scam. Check out this video: youtube.com/watch?v=pupmK1LRFGY&feature=related
Sly
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century): Earmarks are also as old as the republic itself, as Congress is given sole discretion to direct funds (i.e. earmark) to specific projects.
The argument people have against modern earmarks is that they circumvent the appropriations process, but they don’t entirely. The way it works is that a member of Congress gets permission from the chairperson and ranking member of the governing committee to insert an earmark into an appropriations bill, rather than take time during regular committee sessions to have all members vote on it. It’s done for efficiency, as having full committee votes on projects for all 435 congressional districts and 50 states would take up huge amounts of time.
The downside of the process, more than anything else, is that it has made the chairpersons and ranking members of these committees more powerful. So it shouldn’t be surprising that the Republicans who oppose a ban will become chairs of pretty powerful committees when it comes to money:
Cochran: Appropriations (the big chair in terms of pork)
Shelby: Finance (taxation/revenue)
Murkowski: Energy and Natural Resources (public lands)
Lugar: Foreign Relations (foreign aid and arms sales)
Inhofe: Environment and Public Works (infrastructure)
arguingwithsignposts
@Sly:
With the exception of possibly Lugar, that list is just chock-full of irony. Inhofe and environment – heh.
p.a.
posted on cnn 1:41pm. i just do not know how to respond to this. i guess i have to go all in on sully’s ‘he plays chess while everyone else is playing checkers’ meme, or i’ll have to write him off as a fool.
Dennis SGMM
@Brachiator:
Food for thought. The evangelicals whom you mentioned seemed to be okay voting Republican for years although they received little of what they wanted in return. It appeared to me that as long as the GOP included the boilerplate anti-abortion and pro-school prayer planks in their party platform the religious right was in their pocket. My thought was that once the bloom is off the rose the Tea Party might go the same way.
Wake-up call? The Dems seem immune to them. They’ll manage to lose the Senate in 2012 (They’re defending twice as many seats as the Republicans) and they still won’t even consider that turning into Reagan-era Republicans may not be the best idea.
JGabriel
@Mike Goetz:
DeMint’s the one Murkowski, and the other GOP non-TPer’s, loathe.
.
Southern Beale
I’m sorry but how do you get futher to the right than James Inhofe?
Sly
@Sly:
Forgot to mention that Collins is going to Chair the Homeland Security Committee. Also big bucks.
Dennis SGMM
@p.a.:
I couldn’t believe it so I went to CNN and looked it up.
This is good news for John
McCainBoehner.J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
What is the British Independence Party equivalent to “Tea Bagging”? I just learned a few posts down that both parties are very similar and want to use the correct terminology.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
@El Tiburon: no need to get personal or overly emotional.
but the fact remains, Russ refused to sign the public option petition. that’s incontrovertible, as are his senate votes for ashcroft and roberts. a reality based community has to deal with inconvenient truths, no matter how painful.
geg6
@Benjamin Cisco:
Just so you know, Murkowski has voted pro-choice in the past. She’s never been complete and utter wingnut.
arguingwithsignposts
@Dennis SGMM: utter and complete horse shit. It is hard for me to believe he is that dense.
Kryptik
@arguingwithsignposts:
Like I said before, on that NYTimes article that basically echoed the same thing: Obama is hippie punching himself.
Fucking ridiculous.
mattH
@Roger Moore: Bennett never even made it to the primary, he was #3 in votes during the nominating convention, meaning he was unselected by a terribly small percentage of the population.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
@Sly:
they won’t become chairs. the repugs didn’t win the senate. only the house.
Ash Can
@p.a.: Of course he’s going to say that. It’s what the great unwashed want to hear, and when the Republicans inevitably turn intransigent, he can say — again — that he tried, but they won’t act in good faith. If they do it, and he says it, often enough, maybe more voters will catch on.
The important thing is how this “Republican outreach” translates into policy on Obama’s part, if it does at all. If it becomes evident that he’s significantly changing course on his stated goals, that’s one thing. But if this “outreach” consists primarily of more meetings, such as the possibility of a Camp David meeting that the article mentions, all it does is give the great unwashed more opportunities to hear the Prez say “Hey, I tried, but they don’t want to do it.” Repetition is what makes the meme, and in the case of a lazy and contrary press, this kind of meme is going to take extra repetition.
In short, a great deal of politics is theater, and I see no reason to rush to judgment on this.
Brachiator
@Dennis SGMM:
The Tea Party People, and others inspired by them, are not motivated by the same old boilerplate. And unlike the evangelicals, they are not content to let the mainstream GOP represent them.
Part of this may be because the Tea Party does not have an organized platform or a coherent set of ideas. As you and others have noted, some of them and their adherents are motivated by fear, by racial anxiety, and by some odd notion that they need to take the country back from somebody. They can’t be placated by someone voting a platform. They are looking for direct action.
For example, anti-Latino sentiment turned into actual law in Arizona and elsewhere, and despite some legal defeats in the courts, there is a new effort to bring similar laws to California as part of a 2012 ballot initiative. This will likely fail (California kicked Republicans to the curb in the November elections), but it will no doubt bring out conservative voters. But this goes beyond the old family values, anti-abortion plank, which looks almost quaint now.
If anything, the Tea Party people seem to think that the country needs to be remade, or returned to a white, Christian, non-liberal dominated society. This is not just about laws, it is about a social transformation. Presumably, a “revived” America, with Real Americans(tm) in charge, would naturally rework the Constitution into an anti-abortion, English only, all white Christian all the time document, and all subsequent laws would magically fall into place.
You may be right here, but if this is what happens, then we are all in big trouble.
Kryptik
@Ash Can:
Lucy. Football.
They’ve made it blatant that all they want to do is shitcan Obama, and they don’t care how bad the country has to go before it happens, and the country still wants Republicans further right. Bipartisanship, even going through the motions, is not helpful at this point. Not when one side is literally out for scorched earth.
mds
@El Tiburon:
Indeed, because at the end of the day, we are all Americans, and the problems facing us ….
Snort. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! … Sorry, I just couldn’t keep it up. Hooray, they broke ranks to give Jim DeMint a black eye over an absolutely meaningless earmark “ban.” Lugar is apoplectic over START, which means he will toe the GOP line on absolutely everything else of substance in sorrow rather than in anger. Snowe is threatened from the far right, so she will simultaneously suck up to the far right, and continue to publicly preen about her moderation. And she’ll either get away with it, or be replaced by an out-and-out teabagger who will vote identically on anything that matters. Remember back in 2006-2008, when the GOP thought the lesson of Democratic victories was that Republicans hadn’t been deranged and destructive enough? And we thought they were destined to spend a long time in the wilderness because they had learned the wrong lesson? Welcome to 2010.
KG
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century): Most presidents would sign an earmark ban because it gives more power to the executive branch. With earmarks, the money has already been appropriated, and it’s simply a member of congress saying, “I want this money to go here.” Since one of the main jobs of Congress is to appropriate funds, it makes sense that they’d have this power. However, if the money isn’t earmarked, then the executive branch (president and cabinet officials) have the discretion to send it where ever they want. With Obama, I’m not sure which way he’ll go. He’s actually done an admirable job of making the executive branch a bit more co-equal. But whether that continues with the GOP now having a stake in the government is another question.
New Yorker
This. Thank you, Sarah Palin, for giving us bizarro-Joe Lieberman.
Dennis SGMM
@Brachiator:
Again, you make some very good points. Having lived through the Fifties once already, I do not relish a return to them. Fear and future shock may succeed where religion and racism so long failed.
D-Chance.
BTW- It is sure going to be fun watching Murkowski…
Almost as fun as watching Lieberman do the exact same thing? Nah, didn’t think so…
BTW, can Lieberman/Murkowski simply be shortened to… Liebowski?
Tsulagi
Though it didn’t pass, no doubt McCain, DeMint and those Rs that did vote for it will lead with their principles as an example to all by refusing earmarks for their states. Yep, just about as soon as they refuse their government paid and administered health care.
@Dennis SGMM: Some people never learn.
harlana
@Dennis SGMM: This is an Onion piece, right?
El Cid
Democrats manage to move food safety legislation through the Senate past Tom Coburn’s 400 year delay and which was approved by 73 votes, which greatly strengthens the FDA’s role in protecting Americans from food-borne illnesses. Thus beginning to reverse the Reagan-launched agenda of cutting inspectors and inspections and non-enforcement of standards.
I don’t quite grasp the significance of such non-foods as Starbursts and jelly beans, but I’m glad to know that more Democratic women staffers can buy a good cut of beef.
At least a few Republicans aren’t always E-coli conservatives.
WyldPirate
@p.a.:
Before I fully revert to being a good supportive citizen of BJ….
I told you _______.. (doh)
can anyone say capitula….? (doh)
Maybe he’s right. Maybe President Obama hasn’t reached out enough to those nice Republicans. Maybe if Democrats and the President would just cooperate for once, then they could all join hands and sing Kumbaya and work for the good of the people.
If only President Obama would reach out to them some more.
Of course, I also have a very good friend whose sister husband constantly verbally abused her. Then one day, he smacked her around. She didn’t file charges. “He loves me”, my friend’s sister, said. A couple of months later, he beat her so badly she suffered permanent brain damage and is an assisted living facility today unable to care for herself or her children. Her ex-husband is serving 25-life. True story.
President Obama and the Dems remind me of my friend’s sister. The country is what is going to be victimized and end up with permanent brain damage.
Dennis SGMM
@harlana:
Dunno. I couldn’t find anything to corroborate it although another article quoted Mitch McConnell and John Boehner as saying that the president had “put his best foot forward” in the meeting. I get the creeps when those two like something that Obama did.
arguingwithsignposts
@El Cid:
That sentence just sounds incredibly condescending for some reason.
Ash Can
@Kryptik: You’re assuming that Obama’s words signal that he’s throwing in the towel on his agenda, which is not supported by reality. He spent the last two years talking bipartisanship with the Republicans, and what did it get us? Only the most productive Congressional session in 45 years.
It’s rhetoric. This is the way politics operates. Get back to me when Obama actually gets on the horn with Medvedev and tells him he’s scuttling START because the Republicans don’t like it.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
@El Cid:
the problem is most bloggies will say “big deal, that was easy”.
Corner Stone
@p.a.: I was going to write something overly snarky like, “But he *had* to do that! Don’t you see?!” etc.
But Ash Can at 54 beat me to it.
…
Wait a minute. You mean Ash Can *really* believes this?? Still?!
Dennis SGMM
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century):
A good bill is a good bill. I would note that, absent Congressional action, long-term unemployment benefits run out today. Soon, a non-trivial number of Americans aren’t going to be able to buy that safer food anyway.
aimai
@Ash Can:
I agree with Ash Can. I’m so pissed at Obama for the two year federal worker’s freeze that I can hardly spit. I think that’s stupid policy and stupid politics. But saying to the Republicans “I didn’t reach out to you enough?”–that’s just politics and politesse. I’d like to see a little actual iron hand in velvet glove but I”m ok with the velvet glove. Various audiences need different messages. When he goes to speak to the Republican caucus its not inappropriate to play their game and the game their voters want to hear. If he only actually fought the public fights his own voters want to see I’d be pretty happy. As it is, I’m totally disgusted. But not over this.
aimai
Corner Stone
@Ash Can:
Ummm, yeah. About that. How many Republican votes did that get us?
With your approach I guess the good news is that after the 2010 shellacking the President will now have even more opportunities to be bipartisan because there are so many more Republicans for him to successfully reach out to.
Corner Stone
@Dennis SGMM: But at least the dumpster diving will be choice!
So there’s that.
Dennis SGMM
@Ash Can:
I’m not certain how productive it was if one of the things that it produced was a Republican majority in the House.
WyldPirate
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century):
The FDA better get ready to go on a HUGE hiring spree. If this kind of legislation is left to self-enforcement, it will fail and we will have more outbreaks. If they (FDA) don’t inspect–and inspect with great frequency and in an unannounced manner, the legislation will not be effective.
Chyron HR
This just in: President kisses fat, ugly, whiny babies.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
Why are bloggies so emotional and palin like?
Here you have an historic achievement, the first sweeping food saftey bill in 70 years. That’s a long time. And as the post says, it reverses 30 years of reaganism.
This is what progressive and activists stand for — government action to make people’s lives better. Fuck overton’s window. this is really moving forward.
But instead of appreciating the event, bloggies want to focus on a meaningless rhetorical sop to retarded low-information/indie/swing voters.
Talk ’bout anti-intellectual.
Also, too.
Woodrowfan
I’d be more impressed by the federal pay freeze if it had only been applied to the upper ranks. Let the GS-9s and 10s alone. The SES and SIS can live on their $100,000 plus salaries for a couple years.
Citizen Alan
Rh@Dennis SGMM:
“[P]ut his best foot forward.” Well, I’m pleased to know they think he groveled sufficiently for once. I hope they both tipped him well when he got finished polishing their shoes. Perhaps, they’ll have some yard work for him later, as well.
We are so screwed.
JAHILL10
@Dennis SGMM: …which always happens in midterms. Why is the loss of only one house of congress, when this usually always happens to the party in power during midterm elections, supposed to be some sort of grand statement about Obama’s legislative accomplishments so far?
Comrade Darkness
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century): Earmarks are very unpopular with indies and a veto would be good politics.
Uh, no. That would just royally piss off the few congresscritters who have a spine on other issues whom Obama badly needs. Good politics would be what Clinton did in his last year in office, the thing that actually balanced the budget. Insist that congress to deliver a bill with equivalent spending cuts elsewhere or a tax increase to cover the cost.
Dennis SGMM
@JAHILL10:
Not always and not this badly. You have to go back to the 1938 mid-term to find a bigger blowout.
El Cid
@arguingwithsignposts:
I’m thinking that it’s because it sounds incredibly condescending.
Now, I’m not at all surprised that a group of people, and more often (though not overwhelmingly so) women, might not have an idea of some basic things to know in choosing this or that cut or this or that quality. (In addition, a lot of people believe horse-shit but they think they know some techniques.)
But it sounds so iffy because it either seems that Republicans know how to buy steaks but Democrats don’t, or that maybe they just didn’t want to write the part about it being a male who taught them. Or maybe that it was a cattle country vs. latte-sippin’ urbay ay-leets divide.
None of those are suggested, but you can’t help hearing such a tone. And it’s just a weird thing to include, except that the article is being forced to include amusing personal details when they’re just not that interesting. I.e., ‘Wow! They shared jelly beans! They picked out steaks!’
Sly
In related news, Comcast subscribers who use Netflix are getting teabagged good and hard.
The Invisible Hand wants its cut, or it will use the Invisible Bat to break your fucking hippy legs.
WyldPirate
@Dennis SGMM:
You just don’t get it, Dennis SGMM. That just means that the electorate was so thrilled with the direction of the country that they wanted to get more people in place that opposed the direction the party in power was taking it. To show their love, they almost handed all the car keys back to those nice people that drove us into the ditch in the first place.
And it was an off year election which always hurts Dems–except in years like 2006 when it doesn’t.
Sly
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century): Brain fart. They’re still ranking members, however, so they still have a say.
soonergrunt
@freelancer: Dude, I just live here. I’m not actually FROM here, and as soon as the wife and I vest our pensions and the younger one graduates high school, I’m moving.
And Sally Kerns is crazier than a shit house rat. If you guys think our congressional delegation are a bunch of nutzoids, you should see the state assembly and senate.
Ash Can
@Corner Stone:
Rhetoric: 1) Using language effectively to please or persuade. 2) Grandiosity: high-flown style; excessive use of verbal ornamentation; “the grandiosity of his prose”; “an excessive ornateness of language.”
3) Palaver: loud and confused and empty talk; “mere rhetoric.”
Now read carefully: The people in DC, from the president on down, are all trial lawyers. They are steeped in rhetoric. All three of the above kinds. They eat, sleep, and breathe it. That’s just the way it is. The rhetoric is not going to stop. I’ll be the first to admit it’s silly, but whining is the only thing we can do about it, because the nature of the beast is not going to change.
What makes me fucking crazy is when people ignore facts because they don’t fit their beliefs. Yes, this is what you’re doing. And you won’t admit it, or even see it, because it messes up your narrative.
Fine. Stick with your narrative. But be aware that it makes you look silly.
Comrade Darkness
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century): Nothing would collapse the teabagger’s dreams faster than actually succeeding in getting the politicians to do what they want. Can you imagine the screams of horror from the red states?
Ash Can
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century): This. I fucking quit.
Corner Stone
@El Cid:
Well of course. Because Republicans go out on their ranch, slaughter the cow, butcher it and know all the best cuts because they loved that damn cow since calving day.
While Democrats, if they eat meat at all instead of tofu, have their nanny go to the store for them.
trollhattan
Funniest part of the whole post. Sad-funny, but funny.
I suspect Imhofe voted thusly because he wants special funding for his pet project proving that dinosaurs want to be liberated from the cold, cold ground, in the form of sweet, plant-foody CO2.
El Cid
@aimai: Krugman links to DDay on Organizing For America asking for Letters to Editors defending Obama’s role in controlling the deficit and out of control spending, and supposedly specifically mentioning the federal pay freeze. I’m assuming that by suggesting writers model their letters on the message sent by OFA then it would include mentioning the federal pay freeze. I’m not sure, but I think a more explicit linkage might be needed to draw the conclusions they have. Maybe not.
Redshift
@wengler:
Doesn’t seem weird to me. They’ve been carefully coached by their puppet masters to feel self-righteous directing their anti-debt rage against a procedure that has no effect on the money those masters receive (and coincidentally, no effect on the deficit.)
Heck, it may have been specifically selected because people who actually understand how government works would never go along with it, so it can be used over and over again with failure always blamed on the evil libruls, just like a constitutional amendment banning abortion worked for the Religious Right.
Corner Stone
@El Cid:
Oh, and I think “jelly beans” are important because of their Reagan-esqueness.
soonergrunt
@Southern Beale: Any number of members of the OK state house and senate would easily qualify.
Comrade Darkness
@Sly: But but, internet neutrality is the country’s biggest threat to free speech! — The Teabaggers
Whoever gets the tea party to parrot their stunningly self defeating rhetoric deserves a medal for chutzpa. This is the real weakness of the liberal position. We assume average people are not buttfccking stupid.
Joseph Nobles
Buck McKeon (new Armed Services chair) and Joe “You Lie” Wilson (new Military Personnel sub chair) just effing announced that they plan to hold effing oversight hearings on how the effing DADT repeal survey was conducted as part of their effing due diligence effort to effing “understand the” effing “ramifications of overturning the” effing “law.”
Eff them.
El Cid
@Corner Stone: Republicans across the country, however, can count on Wal-Mart to help them select the best meats, while Democrats never enter that paradise and instead can only buy beef from well-educated, multi-ethnic cows who fed on organic ancient heritage grasses integrated with forest cover in several Central American indigenous areas and who are given the choice of when and how to quietly and painlessly terminate their lives.
JAHILL10
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century): But, but, but he didn’t spit in John Boehner’s face so that makes him a surrender monkey!
You know for the political savvy that is frequently displayed on this site, there are a lot of folks who have the knee jerk reactions of kindergartners to “optics”. Sometimes I think it is a reflection of some personal frustration in their own lives. So look, if you want to institute a “Punch a Republican Day,” call your congressperson and get them to pass a resolution quick before the lameduck session is over!
Comrade Darkness
@JAHILL10:
Obama’s record number of votes in 2008 was also a grand negative statement about any future legislative accomplishments. Keep up, here.
Southern Beale
From El Cid’s food safety legislation link:
??? Democrats don’t know anything about high quality steaks? What, are we all nibbling on tofu bars are something?
Christ the stupidity of the New York Times….
JAHILL10
@Dennis SGMM: Wrong. You need look no farther back than Clinton. And he lost both houses.
Corner Stone
@Ash Can: Speaking of silly.
The definition of silly is desperately clinging to the belief that President Obama doesn’t actually believe this “rhetoric”.
That’s what makes people like you look silly.
The facts are that the legislation that was passed was passed with what, 2 Republican votes? And I don’t mean the ones where they name Post Offices. On the meaningful stuff, what percentage of Republicans were on board?
El Cid
@Corner Stone: Yeah, I got that, I just got nauseous just thinking about having to mention that. Just like I didn’t want to have to recall all that bullshit about Bush Sr. liking pork rinds.
Comrade Darkness
@WyldPirate: Tom Coburn (R-Douchbag) was the sole hold up on this legislation. For months. He’s still calling for less regulation. Because he is apparently a parrot with brain damage. Is it bad to wish food-borne dysentery on the man for all of 2011?
Dennis SGMM
@JAHILL10:
No, right. Clinton lost 54 House seats and eight Senate seats. In 2010 the Dems lost 64 House seats and six Senate seats.
In 1938 the Dems lost 72 House seats and seven Senate seats.
Mike Goetz
@WyldPirate:
And here I was thinking you’d show up and be hysterically glum. Thanks for not conforming to type.
El Cid
Oh, and to remind people of what the Reaganite plan to help our food be much more shit-filled, here’s a helpful bit of recall:
One of Reagan’s strategies was to take situations in which the laws couldn’t be changed and enforce them in such ways that they were impossible to enforce. I.e., imposing staffing restrictions so limiting that proper inspections were simply impossible, and thus not directly breaking any law. Just rendering (ha!) the laws meaningless.
Though that may give the, um, ‘flavor’ of the Reaganite attack on consumer protection, unfortunately the new regulation does not apply directly to meat inspection, since that’s already handled by the FDA, not USDA.
JAHILL10
@Dennis SGMM: But of the total number of House seats retained, Democrats kept more this time round. Face it, 2008 swept in a bunch of blue dogs from a bunch of red districts that were going to be hard to hold if you didn’t have an Obama at the top of the ticket drawing out minority and young voters. So we lost those seats. That’s politics. As Nanch SMASH says, that’s why you take the votes when you’ve got the votes because there is no such thing as a permanent majority.
Kryptik
@JAHILL10:
Jabber about optics and our ‘knee jerk reaction’ to it…but guess what lost us this election? Optics. What America saw was Democrats as rampant communists and Anti-Americans spending away the country. It wasn’t true, but it was what they saw. They didn’t see their taxes cut (even though they were), they instead saw ‘Taxes raised by tax-and-spend Dems!’ They didn’t see the deficit cut into, they saw ‘DEMS SPENDING US INTO INCREDIBLE DEBT!’. They didn’t see health care become more accessible to everyone, they saw ‘DEMS WANT TO TAKE AWAY YOUR RIGHT TO YOUR INSURANCE!’.
And guess why? Republicans own the ‘optics’. They own them because Dems continue to cede the optics to them, by playing their frames. And when Obama, instead of trying to defend and sell his agenda better, instead accepts the ‘I wasn’t bipartisan enough, it’s my fault’ BS the GOP has tarred him with before he was even inaugurated…that’s a problem. That shows that he’s bought into the idea that ‘GOP are right, Dems are wrong’ BS at least enough to craft himself within that narrative. It’s ceding the argument before it starts by agreeing to a tilted field.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
@JAHILL10:
in many ways these people are no different than the retarded low-information swing voter who focus on optics and not policy. They too place their emotional need/hunger for rhetorical sop ahead of policy. Every night they run home and turn on msnbc not for news, but to soak up fire breathing, angry, populist gruel served to them by carnival barkers like Ed and Keith.
Mike Goetz
@Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century):
God’s Little Bellyachers, we! Seriously, if you want pathetic, ineffectual losers, just read these comment threads, or Kos, or TPM, or Digby, or…..
Just droning on and on with their weak whiny bellyaching.
Sly
@Comrade Darkness:
What’s this “we” shit?
catclub
@Dennis SGMM: “I’m not certain how productive it was if one of the things that it produced was a Republican majority in the House.”
If the alternative is do nothing but stay in power in order to …
do nothing; I am much more in favor of getting something done. It was definitely worth it.
Poopyman
@El Cid: Keep in mind, people, that this is the NYT reporting on what happened, not what actually happened. There may have been no condescension at all among the staffers.
NR
@catclub: Not really, given that what got done was a bunch of sops to the Republicans and big corporations.
El Cid
There wasn’t much change under the Clinton administration, but there was another huge area of deregulation and anti-regulatory enforcement innovations: state-level action, when the pork and poultry factory farm corporations simply bought much of the NC state legislature, from which you got the exploding shit lagoons and entire towns benighted with the ever-present smell of pig shit.
Hee hee! I see what you did there!
[Actually, there was action after so many such egregious disasters by Clinton late in the 2nd term.]
Halteclere
This thread has gone on long enough. Time for something off-topic – corrupt pastors!
Unethical religious people. Shocker.
Zam
@Southern Beale: I work in a restaurant where my boss is a strong dem, I’m pretty sure he knows a good cut of meat.
Mike Goetz
@Kryptik:
Clearly the only way to react to Republicans owning the optics is to devolve into whiny little shits with permanent po-faces on.
WyldPirate
@El Cid:
I think you have this backwards, El Cid. I’m pretty sure USDA does most of the meat inspection. See USDA Food Safety and Inspection service.
freelancer
@Sly:
Spoken like a true Dem.
Kryptik
@Mike Goetz:
Or, you know, pressure our leaders to actually call a spade ‘a spade’ and call bullshit ‘bullshit’ and hammer the fuckers on their hypocrisy, rather than slump shoulders and say ‘you’re right, I’m wrong, hit me more, I deserve it’.
Jrod the Cookie Thief
@Mike Goetz: No, the real only way is a campaign to insult and denigrate the voters who are swayed by optics. Once they’re told what worthless little shits they are, they’ll surely vote a straight D ticket!
NR
@Corner Stone: Also, Obama has decided that his problem over the last two years was that he didn’t do enough to reach out to Republicans:
Obama appoints Geithner to negotiate with Republicans:
If Obama keeps this up, even Sarah Palin will be able to beat him in 2012.
Dennis SGMM
@Mike Goetz:
If I make some smores can I get into the He-Man Democrat tree house?
DanF
Speaking as a Hoosier – Assuming Lugar runs again, he is probably safe. The man is an institution and wields quite a bit of political power in the state. The one exception I would make is if Mike Pence ran against him. Despite being a moron of epic proportions with an ego to match, I just have a hard time seeing Pence publicly attacking Lugar. A no-name tea partier has no chance.
WyldPirate
@Kryptik:
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
@Jrod the Cookie Thief: it worked for paladino. oh, wait…
JAHILL10
@Jrod the Cookie Thief: Make up your minds. Either you’re smarter than John Q., low information, flyover state voter or you’re not. Either you have to have your fee-fees catered to day in, day out or you can have a president who actually gets things accomplished. But if you’d not vote your own interests because Obama didn’t give you a warm fuzzy and instead gave you HCR, then I don’t know why you care about progressive causes at all.
Kryptik
@WyldPirate:
Thing is, I fully accept that Obama and the Dems have gotten good stuff done. Really good, and in many ways historic stuff. But the problem is that, even in accepting this, I see where they really could have done even more, and I see ‘optics’ playing out where people have seen almost the exact opposite of what they’re getting with the good stuff Obama and the Dems have done. And that’s a matter of ‘optics’. It’s a matter of the good stuff not being sold well enough to counteract Reps tarring it with bullshit. And now we’re in a position where the GOP is going full bore to try and repeal almost every single gain we made. The fact that they likely won’t succeed, and that the GOP probably KNOWS they won’t succeed and are simply using it for political capital…that doesn’t change the fact that they’re doing this, and that the public seems full bore behind them, because they’ve grown to hate the Dems that fucking much.
El Cid
And to fairly update the situation to the Bush Jr. years:
And on the Bush Jr. meat industry innovations, welcome to the reason that I not only rarely eat any mass fast food burger any more (sorry, sometimes I was just nostalgic once every few months since it was such a rare treat as a kid) but any national product made with ground meats such as beefs, chicken, pork, sausage, etc. (Yeah, I know, I try to do the whole small farm local thing sometimes, but not that often.)
Ladies and Gentlemen (if you haven’t already known about this), introducing Pink Slime from Beef Products Incorporated.
A side benefit is that you can cut costs on beef ‘products’ used in school cafeterias.
BPI has a good response to all this fear-mongering about having to ammonia-fill centrifugal cow toenails and hair and floor sweepings: just like CO2 is necessary for life on Urf, so too is ammonia necessary for our lives.
However, it isn’t the case that every pre-packaged ground beef product uses pink slime. Primarily the large scale national ones.
Carnacki
Every comment (15 so far) on The Hill story so far is tea baggers threatening the Republicans who supported earmarks.
WyldPirate
@Kryptik:
Kryptik, I’ve gotta confess. I was fucking with you. I agree with you 100% what you said in your first post.
I’m just in the process of getting my BJ’er commentariat Obotomy so I can fit in here with all of the kewl kidz. My post to you was a trial run.
Comrade Darkness
@Sly: Oops. Sorry. Present company excepted, of course.
@Carnacki: I’m totally all for these republicans turning around and banning all funding for medicare scooters.
Oscar Leroy
Which means liberals should pressure them to help advance our agenda, rather than the president! ! ! ! ! ! !
Maody
Oh god, and these people are from North Carolina, my beloved state. There is a link to listen how owning property as a prerequisite for voting *is a good idea*
late to the party, but lucky to find a place to post the above link. i am fucking bereft.
Judas Escargot
@Sly:
Shelby: Finance (taxation/revenue)
Shelby’s also the ‘Senator from Marshall Space Flight Center’, and has been fighting the administration pretty hard on any changes in NASA direction.
I suspect this had something to do with his vote, also.
Jrod the Cookie Thief
@JAHILL10: Just who the fuck are you supposed to be talking to?
I voted for Obama, and I’ll do so again in 2012, pretty much regardless of what he does or doesn’t do. Why is it that you idiots assume that anyone who’s not fully on board with your particular brand of whining is a firebagger or whatever the BJ insult-to-leftists-du-jour is?
Most of the voters in this country ONLY care about optics. Facts and figures mean absolutely nothing to them. So, shall we deal with this situation, or shall we bitch and moan that the electorate isn’t the god damn Algonquin Round Table?
Yeah, it sucks that Americans need their little fee-fees massaged. But that’s how it is! If we actually want to win elections we’d better learn to work those fee-fees.