Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

We’re not going back!

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

People are complicated. Love is not.

There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Donald Jessica Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

The choice is between normal and crazy.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

You are here: Home / Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

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We’ll just file this as Exhibit A of Senate Democrats talking out both sides of their mouths. During the Sanderthon the past few days, it was notable (to me, at least), that Sen. Mary Landrieu got up and spoke with a populist fire, as if she endorsed everything Bernie Sanders had to say. Here is a news report from the Times-Picayune on her stance that she is featuring on her Senate website:

Under attack for her opposition to the Obama-GOP tax compromise, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., defended her stance Thursday and repeated her criticism that the plan “borders on moral recklessness.”

Landrieu’s position was ridiculed — from both the left and right — as inconsistent because she was one of the few Senate Democrats to support the original Bush tax cuts in 2001.

Nonsense, Landrieu said.

In 2001, the United States was “running a surplus,” and she said it was both responsible and reasonable to give all Americans a tax cut. Moreover, Landrieu said she supported legislation — unsuccessful because of “opposition from all but four Senate Republicans” — to establish a trigger that would have brought a temporary halt to the tax breaks if the federal budget situation went bad.

Landrieu said she finds herself being asked by the president and Republican leaders to support continuation of the tax cuts, not only for the middle class, which she supports, but for people earning more than $1 million a year, when the government just reported a record $1.3 trillion deficit.

“None of it (the tax cut) is paid for,” said Landrieu, who argued that just continuing the tax cuts for the wealthy would require U.S. taxpayers — mostly the struggling middle class — to borrow another $50 billion.

“I’m taking this stand because it borders on moral recklessness,” Landrieu said.

You know how this is going to end up, don’t you? Senator Landrieu voted for the tax cut, and this is the front page of her Senate web page now:

As Nelson, Lieberman, Snowe, Collins, Bayh, and Landrieu, as well as many others (who can forget Stupak and that crew of scum) have proven over and over again, there is no more morally reckless and fickle group of double-dealing hypocrites on the planet than the Senate moderates, and their recklessness is matched only by their deceit and their willingness to talk out both sides of their mouth. I’m sure this is still all Obama’s fault, though.

Reader Interactions

175Comments

  3. 3.

    General Stuck

    I’m sure this is still all Obama’s fault, though.

    Of course it is, especially to a nervous white democratic senator from Louisiana. These things are written in crayon on bathroom walls. Add that to Mary’s red state insatiable appetite for federal grants, with one hand picking Obama’s pocket, and you have flim flam set on rock and roll.

  5. 5.

    beltane

    Of course it’s not Obama’s fault. However, he worked with these people so he must have known what a nest of vipers the Senate is.

  6. 6.

    Mumphrey

    Paging Wyld Pirate, Joe Beese and that other clown to come on in and tell us why Obama’s worse than Bush, Hitler & Stalin put together.

  8. 8.

    MikeJ

    @beltane: Correct. Why should the president work with the senate? If you do, you run the risk of passing legislation, rather than staying morally pure for speechifying.

  10. 10.

    martha

    Oh Mary makes my head hurt. And Richard Holbrooke is dead and I’m watching CNN and learning alot, except what’s the deal with Kathleen Parker? She hasn’t said a word the entire time? Is she incapable of contributing to discussion or can she only read from teleprompters? Oh, never mind.

  11. 11.

    PS

    @beltane: During the first Senate committee hearing Obama attended as a Senator (allegedly, approximately, etc.), he slid a note to an aide that read “Shoot. Me. Now.” He knows them.

  14. 14.

    slag

    In 2001, the United States was “running a surplus,” and she said it was both responsible and reasonable to give all Americans a tax cut.

    Exactly. The first thing you want to do when you have a surplus is take steps to turn it into a deficit. Economics 101.

  16. 16.

    beltane

    @MikeJ: It has nothing to do with purity. All I’m saying is that he shouldn’t have expected any better from this crowd.

  17. 17.

    Hal

    Love the Huffpo headline:

    9 Democrats, 5 Republican Stand Against Obama-GOP Compromise

    The headline could just as easily be “Congressional Dems full of shit” or “5 Republican Senators think the rich not getting enough tax cuts yet.”

    Or how about, “Arianna needs for clicks for her mansion.”

  18. 18.

    Buck

    I’m sure this is still all Obama’s fault, though.

    What’s the word…? Incite? Yep, that’s it.

    Slow day, John?

  20. 20.

    newhavenguy

    I am not one of those people with a “Founding Fathers”(TM) fetish. Some of them had ideas that I like, some had ideas that I regard as stupid or evil, and a lot of them had both kinds. The rich white guys who wrote the Constitution were not of one mind, any more than they were divinely ordained Mormon-Bircher Kitsch Klowns that Skousen and Beck seem to imagine.

    Big-State/Little-State balance of power was a big deal to all involved, though. And I doubt that any of them could (or would care to) imagine a California with 40 million as opposed to Wyoming’s 544,000. Or California’s two Senators, “balanced” by THIRTY TWO Senators who collectively represent less than half as many Americans.

  21. 21.

    poicephalus

    Karzai just said that if he had to chose today, he would go with the Talibs.

    I would suggest assassination, but that didn’t work out too well with Diem. Who also had a corrupt brother.

    Fuck!

  22. 22.

    General Stuck

    @Buck:

    Incite? just check the thread post below, where nothing was the least bit controversial and all the ire was directed at the senate, where it should be on this issue. And still it turned into the same Obama bashing bullshit. More like simply predicting the sunrise in the east tomorrow, than inciting anything.

  23. 23.

    Jewish Steel

    OT, but can anyone point me towards a tutorial showing me how to manage my pie filter for chrome?

    I’ve got the extension installed, now what?

  24. 24.

    WyldPirate

    @General Stuck:

    They will be along soon enough. With fresh towels and freshly picked noses.

    Stuck, quit huffing that spray can of Teflon. That’s for your statue of the President.

  25. 25.

    pattonbt

    Stupid question here, so please forgive if it’s completely ignorant/asinine. If I recall the Bush tax cuts were passed via reconciliation, which required the ten year sunset. Can’t the house and senate pass similar legislation then go to committee and use reconciliation the same way to delete the extension of the cuts to the rich and keep the rest? Or would that change the bill too much? I forgot the rules on reconciliation but I believe it was OK to use with funding/tax issues (hence why it was used in the first place).

    Of course it would have a ten year sunset like the original cuts, but since the Dems have nominal controls in both houses right now, if they had their acts together (I threw up a little typing that of course), couldnt they do this?

    As to the main post – politician double talks, news at 11.

  27. 27.

    WereBear (itouch)

    It has taken thirty years to drive this country so far into the ditch. I don’t see how anyone could fix it in two years.

    Reminds me of how people would rescue an animal, knowing they have problems, and call me up to say, “Why aren’t they over it yet?”

    These things don’t fix themselves on our schedule. It takes as long as it takes.

  31. 31.

    steviez314

    If only Chancellor Palpobama had dissolved the Senate and declared himself Emperor, this tax compromise would not have happened. Public option. Also.

  32. 32.

    BombIranForChrist

    Ugh, this stuff just makes me sick.

    If I had the choice between growing all my hair back or somehow killing my interest in politics, I would probably take the second option. It’s such a depressing pursuit.

  33. 33.

    debit

    @Jewish Steel: Well, I use Firefox, but assume the basics are the same. You’ll want to edit it to add names to the filter. In Firefox it’s Tools, Greasemonkey, Manage User Scripts. Then select the script to edit, open in a text editor and look for

    // add your list of badguys here. these are case insensitive
    var baddies = new Array

    You’ll want to list the person to be filtered in quotes in the parentheses followed by a coma between each one (“person to be pied”, “another person to be pied”)

  35. 35.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Jewish Steel: You have to copy the actual script, using a text editor, and paste it into the big window that comes up when you click on Window > Extensions > Tampermonkey > Options > Add a new userscript

  38. 38.

    Michael

    I wholly object to this post on the very, very reasonable grounds that it should have been titled “Mary, Mary, Why Ya Buggin’?”

  41. 41.

    Buck

    @General Stuck:

    I see what you’re saying. And I don’t disagree.

    But can’t we all give peace IGNORE a chance? Works for me! (Then again, I haven’t been bombarded by it endlessly for months on end)

  45. 45.

    Mumphrey

    @Buck:

    Yes, I, too, like the thought of ignoring it, but these clowns are so disruptive and persistent that it’s kind of hard to do. At least I find it hard.

  46. 46.

    AliceBlue

    The whole political situation is so profoundly depressing right now, I’m trying to ignore it and just enjoy Christmas. I’ve been to a couple of concerts and a couple of casual get-togethers, and I’ve just about finished what little shopping I do. I can’t bear to think about the awesome shit taco that the next Congress is going to be.

  48. 48.

    Oscar Leroy

    @pattonbt:

    “Can’t the house and senate pass similar legislation then go to committee and use reconciliation the same way to delete the extension of the cuts to the rich and keep the rest?”

    I don’t see why not. Reconciliation is supposed to be for reducing the budget deficit, and what you said would sure do that.

  50. 50.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Jewish Steel: Piece of cake. The steps take longer to type out than to do. Accept the default on all the Tampermonkey options — they’re well-chosen, and cleek’s script is clean.

  51. 51.

    Buck

    @Mumphrey:

    There are so many sites out there that would be much more fitting for our despondent friends to bleat on. I wonder what the appeal is to remain here where so many (including Cole) would prefer it not take place?

  54. 54.

    Mumphrey

    @Oscar Leroy:

    In all seriousness, I want to ask you: If you think that most of what goes on here is so awful, why do you stick around? It seems like you’d be happier not coming here and reading what people write. I can’t speak for everybody else, but I’d be just as glad if you didn’t post here. I’m not demanding that you leave. That would be pretty pointless and dumb. I’m only genuinely wondering why you stick around when you seem to so clearly not like it here…

  55. 55.

    General Stuck

    @Buck:

    I wonder what the appeal is to remain here where so many (including Cole) would prefer it not take place?

    My own sense is that I get vibes of folks doing some kind of duty, that over rides any normal sense of shame or embarrassment. A mission of sorts, and whether it is individually motivated and has gotten worse from some kind of unholy synergy of idiocy, or as a semi organized outside group effort, I don’t know.

  56. 56.

    Jeffro

    Constitutional amendment doing away with the Senate? (why bother with “amending” or “reforming” the filibuster???) I’m down with that.

  57. 57.

    Buck

    @Oscar Leroy:

    OL, I honestly don’t have a dog in this fight (yet). But I think the problem isn’t with “changing” people’s minds. It’s the constant BADGERING over it that is.

  58. 58.

    Buck

    @General Stuck:

    …folks doing some kind of duty…

    If you had posted that five or ten years ago, I would have laughed at you.

    Today it doesn’t come across as so strange of an idea. How sad is that?

  59. 59.

    Oscar Leroy

    @Mumphrey:

    Well I’ve been coming here for a few years, but around about the health care mess things started getting warped. Now, you’re just not allowed to question one of the treasured narratives or you get juvenile insults hurled at you. It’s very strange what’s happened.

    I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Like another poster and I were saying before, John Cole was an authoritarian 5 years ago and he’s one now. What should we expect?

  60. 60.

    Oscar Leroy

    @General Stuck:

    What do -I- have to be ashamed or embarrassed about? I don’t write constantly-misspelled rants full of nothing but childish rage and mindless insults, topped off with an insistence that I don’t pay any attention to the people I’m flaming.

  61. 61.

    Mumphrey

    @Oscar Leroy:

    I don’t see that he runs this place as an authoritarian. I don’t know what he’s like in life, but not only does he not ban people, he doesn’t even make anybody register to post. He lets loose fairly often about what pisses him off, but that’s about it. He even gave you guys your very own thread earlier today. I don’t know how much less authoritarian he could be.

  62. 62.

    Oscar Leroy

    @Mumphrey:

    What I mean is, he just hates when people diverge from the narrative. He comes up with “these Obama critics are just ruining the tenor and tone of discussion!” Nonsense! It isn’t the critics who are dragging things into the mud with idiotic name-calling and insults. But it is them who disagree with him.

  63. 63.

    Buck

    @Oscar Leroy:

    My apologies, OL. It’s not my place to tell anyone what their passions should or should not be. Mr. Cole and others might argue with you, and that certainly is their right, but I’m going to sit it out.

    Seems I’m always sticking my big foot in my mouth.

  65. 65.

    Oscar Leroy

    I’m sure this is still all Obama’s fault, though.

    No, Mary Landreiu’s vote is up to her. But I’ve never voted for her. Never even had the opportunity.

  66. 66.

    Shade Tail

    @Buck #18:

    What’s the word…? Incite? Yep, that’s it.

    Why do so many people keep parroting this nonsense? The trolls make a huge mess of things for no reason other than their oversized egos, but the blame rests with *Mr. Cole* because he has the gall to call them out for shitting all over *his* blog? Puh-leeeeze.

  68. 68.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @slag:

    Exactly. The first thing you want to do when you have a surplus along with humongous unpaid debt is take steps to turn it into a deeper deficit. Reaganomics 101.

    Fix’t.

  69. 69.

    Dr. Squid

    @Oscar Leroy: Anything you want to write that doesn’t involve mindless insults I’m willing to read.

    Right after…

    John Cole was an authoritarian 5 years ago and he’s one now.

    Oh, the irony, Lupus. Not willing to read mindless insults, but sure willing to write them. What’s good for us peasants is certainly not good for you, eh?

  72. 72.

    Dr. Squid

    @Mumphrey:

    Didn’t you know? To criticize these booger-eating morons is worse than what was done in Bosnia. And they know perspective.

  76. 76.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Jewish Steel: Hey, I explain stuff for a living…

    Now let me explain the sequence of tenses for the Latin subjunctive. If the main-clause verb, the verb in the indicative, is a tense in the primary sequence….

  77. 77.

    El Tiburon

    @BombIranForChrist:

    Ugh, this stuff just makes me sick.

    If I had the choice between growing all my hair back or somehow killing my interest in politics, I would probably take the second option. It’s such a depressing pursuit.

    Yep. It seems everything right now is so deflated. Perhaps Obama was up against insurmountable odds, but that he is such a goddamn wet noodle.

    I am so devoid of any emotion. Think I’m going to pursue some hobbies or something.

  79. 79.

    Ross Hershberger

    You’re bitching about trollage HERE? Read Tomasky some time. The comments threads are OWNED by the under bridge brigade. Two or three insulting posts in a row on every page. They just live to take the piss out of MT and the people who agree with him.
    Makes me wonder why a dozen people who can find fault with ‘Good morning’ if Tomasky says it spend so much time there.

  80. 80.

    Matt

    @Oscar Leroy: You can only use reconciliation if a budget resolution has been passed with reconciliation instructions. Because of what such a budget would look like for 2011 (high spending, low revenue= high deficit), the Democrats did not pass a budget resolution. Absent such a resolution (and, more specifically, reconciliation provisions in the budget), they cannot use reconciliation procedures. They’re stuck passing this through general rules because they didn’t want to call a vote on a budget resolution this past spring (clearly the strategy of not calling a vote wasn’t exactly a political winner, but hindsight is 20/20, etc.). In addition to not passing the budget, they also haven’t passed pretty much any authorization or appropriations bills, meaning all of the federal agencies have no clue what their budgets will be for the fiscal year that we are currently in. That’s why they need to pass either a continuing resolution or an omnibus authorization/appropriation bill before adjourning to keep the government running. It appears they’re going to pass a continuing resolution to run a couple of months. Why we’re going to give the GOP leadership extra shots at the 2011 budget is a mystery to me, but that’s what we’re doing.

  81. 81.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Matt:

    Why we’re going to give the GOP leadership extra shots at the 2011 budget is a mystery to me, but that’s what we’re doing.

    The price paid to avoid being beaten with the deficit stick in 2010 appears to be being beaten with the deficit stick in 2011, by a bunch of people hell-bent on increasing the deficit.

    We’ve gone through the looking glass so many times that it’s time to start thinking about getting one of those transponders for the windshield, so we don’t have to stop and pay the toll on each go-round.

  83. 83.

    Ozymandias, King of Ants

    @Davis X. Machina:

    Now let me explain the sequence of tenses for the Latin subjunctive. If the main-clause verb, the verb in the indicative, is a tense in the primary sequence….

    Oh dear God no! Please don’t make me have a high-school Latin class flashback . . .

  84. 84.

    Davis X. Machina

    I have a churlish colleague who refers to my speciality as ‘not so much a language as a human rights violation.’

  85. 85.

    Ozymandias, King of Ants

    @Davis X. Machina:

    Now let me explain the sequence of tenses for the Latin subjunctive. If the main-clause verb, the verb in the indicative, is a tense in the primary sequence….

    Oh dear God no! Please don’t make me have a high-school Latin class flashback . . .

  88. 88.

    Matt

    @Davis X. Machina: What will be even better is in February when we hit the debt limit. Given the number of GOP reps who will flat out refuse and the likelihood that the Dem minority will not want to cooperate in the House and we’re looking at a pretty scary picture.

    Who wants to see what a recovery looks like after we play chicken with a shutdown in February? That will be legitimate uncertainty impacting markets…

  90. 90.

    dogwood

    First of all, Mary Landrieu’s an ineffective legislator, and a poor party member. She doesn’t have what it takes to be a true southern pol. Politics is a family business for her, and the political changes in La. in the last decade or so have put her in a tight spot. Her state is now an official part of wingnutistan and she is simply trying to cope. She’s a democrat caught in a typical democratic bind. Her hypocrisy is called out by democrats and republicans alike, while David Vitter just won reelection in a landslide. I think she’s probably a decent person with decent skills, but being a southern democrat is only a good deal if you are power hungry and enjoy being the center of attention as a deal maker or breaker. I just don’t see her that way. She needs to get out of the business and use her skills elsewhere.

  92. 92.

    Davis X. Machina

    @Matt: We’ll see who really owns the soul of the GOP then. It’s hard to see how the entrenched rentier class profits from a default, or even the threat of one, and the fiscal Savonarolas put in office by the tea-partiers may find out they’ve been played.

    It will be interesting, in the-famous-Chinese-curse-sense-of-interesting interesting.

  98. 98.

    Chuck Butcher

    Spoken like a true senile old man surrounded by fading useless fluers. It is a shame when you slide off, when you stick to policy you’re half interesting, then off on telling people who and what they are from a position of profound ignorance and entirely lacking in personal responsiblity. That’s the part that is pathetic.

  99. 99.

    tofubo

    Reality is purely the perception of the individual mind. It follows, that since no two minds are alike, no two perceptions of reality are alike. It further follows, that what reality is to one, may seem complete madness to someone else. – Yefim Novikov

    i just wish the more authoritarian corporatists types among us would stop trying to make their complete madness our reality

  102. 102.

    Ozymandias, King of Ants

    @Corner Stone: Didn’t think of that. My only experience with spoken Dutch has been in Amsterdam-Schipol. I heard a lot of Frisian Dutch spoken as a kid but that didn’t sound so much like a cat cough up a hairball.

  104. 104.

    Chuck Butcher

    @General Stuck:

    where and when they want to meet

    To what purpose? To make a figment cry? You’re a despicable little mean mouthed shit. I’ve got a lot more interesting things to do with my time than run off to fucking NM and listen to you whine in person. I don’t lay around licking my nuts and making shit up about people.

  106. 106.

    singfoom

    Landrieu is predictable and sad in her hypocrisy as are most of our politicians. The needs of the Money Party will be seen to over the objections of all, regardless of their team.

    Also, meta-butthurt/hilarious duel time. Should we have a group hug? Or mayhaps a drink of some fine whiskey while we fight with knives?

    I think it gets a hell of a lot darker before we see some light, when it comes to rational policymaking for the actual people of this country instead of the Money Party.

    I take solace in the fact that I too, can yell about said decline on the internets, and I support y’alls right to do it as well.
    Do so with cynically-hearted jolliness.

  107. 107.

    Chuck Butcher

    @General Stuck:
    Yep, I’ll just keep labeling you for the lying ignorant piece of useless work that you are. Fuck, you half wit, do you have any idea what I do for work and what kind of shape I’m in? I don’t steal candy from children and fucking you up wouldn’t be much different. There do happen to be laws and ethics regarding behavior, kicking your ass meets neither requirement.

    I didn’t care spit about political disagreements with you, then you decided to hang a lie on me. You stepped over asshole. You’re a lying punk ass hiding behind the excuse of not existing to spout shit. I told you I wasn’t going to let it go.

  108. 108.

    Corner Stone

    @Ozymandias, King of Ants: We met in Mexico, where we were both taking Spanish lessons. Her 4th language and my 2nd.
    She’d get stumped every once in a while and look at me a little funny and ask me something in Dutch.
    I just said Yes, no matter what was asked.

  109. 109.

    Jason

    @pattonbt: Stupid question here, so please forgive if it’s completely ignorant/asinine. If I recall the Bush tax cuts were passed via
    reconciliation, which required the ten year sunset.

    While the tax cuts were passed using reconciliation (in the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act 2001) there’s nothing in the budget reconciliation process that required the cuts to expire in 10 years. The artificial “expiry” date was created to conceal the true magnitude and cost of the cuts, by creating the fiction that the cuts would not be made permanent. As commenters such as Paul Krugman pointed out at the time, it was always the intention to make the cuts permanent.

    Can’t the house and senate pass similar legislation then go to committee and use reconciliation the same way to delete the extension of the cuts to the rich and keep the rest?

    Yes they could. The problem is, unlike Bush and Trent Lott in 2001, Obama and Reid have a marked reluctance to ram through things using the reconciliation process, instead preferring to build “consensus.” In the current instance using reconciliation (which was talked about in Affordable Care Act as well) wouldn’t help overcome Republican blockade tactics anyway as the Democrats no longer control the house. Of course, if the Democrats had faced up to this issue before the election, as many had been urging them to do, they wouldn’t be in this jam now.

  110. 110.

    General Stuck

    @Chuck Butcher:

    I told you I wasn’t going to let it go.

    I didn’t hang anything on you, I stated my opinion like everyone else with an asshole, I own it and take the repercussions from the community, if there are any. I won’t be paying any attention to you however.

  114. 114.

    General Stuck

    @singfoom: sorry singfoom, no more from me, promise.

    If you guys want to have a flame war, maybe you want to take it somewhere else?

    You hear that butcher, we shouldn’t be messing up this thread for everyone else. If you want to say more leave a comment on my blog. I might even answer it. But you are free there to call me everything you can come up with if it makes you feel better.

  115. 115.

    Chuck Butcher

    @Buck: Well I got that house done and moved on to Bend. The weather has sucked between real bad and just sucked. Wrapped this roof today, but I have a huge pile of tear off laying under where two roofs come together and it is raining tonight and soon below freezing with snow tomorrow. Should be a joy and delight to load into a wheelbarrow and into a dumpster all frozen together and slippery snow. But it gets me out of here and headed home.

    This town is rank for getting around in and my truck gets a whole 8mpg so I’ve been stuck in a partially furnished house with a laptop and Milwaukee job radio for company. I miss my grandson, my wife, my dog, and my friends … and my toys.

  117. 117.

    Buck

    @Chuck Butcher: Pretty rough weather for those having to work out in it. One-half of my family were coal miners, the other half, construction. I’ve been up on them roofs myself but never in the middle of winter.

    Take care of yourself.

  118. 118.

    Chuck Butcher

    @Buck: I do pay attention to business, broken body parts kill profitability. I chose this line of work and where to live so I don’t get to complain that it gets to be winter, whine a bit… Thanks, it’ll be nice to be home.

  119. 119.

    Chuck Butcher

    I’ve watched this Senate over the last two years with a growing sense of wonder. There are some consequences the members can hand out to complete and utter shits, but noooooo. We’re all so nice to each other.

    One thing about working with inanimate materials is that they aren’t lying backbiting shits. You pretty much know what you’ve got to deal with and it is subject to pretty straightforward methodology.

  120. 120.

    General Stuck

    @Chuck Butcher:

    since you brought this back up, I am going to post exactly what I said in the Broken Beyond Repair thread. Just for the record.

    bullshit Butcher, you are as nuts as the rest of the firebaggers, maybe more so, since you aren’t even a liberal. I think you are just pissed you let yourself vote for a black man, when you didn’t really want to

  122. 122.

    General Stuck

    fuck, you half wit, do you have any idea what I do for work and what kind of shape I’m in? I don’t steal candy from children and fucking you up wouldn’t be much different.

    I worked federal law enforcement in the mean hollows of east kentucky for a decade, you are a piss ant compared to the murderous motherfuckers I’ve faced down. But we’ll never know if you don’t show, redneck clown

  123. 123.

    Suffern ACE

    Why does Mary’s stamp cost 44 MLL? What currency is that in? Is that what she thought the surplus amount she exploded in 2002 was worth?

  124. 124.

    General Stuck

    It is kind of funny, I’ve been called a bigot, sexist, and once even a suggestion of being a pedophile, numerous times on this blog, and even worse shit, and it just rolls off my back because I know myself it’s not true.

  125. 125.

    Chuck Butcher

    @General Stuck:

    You hear that butcher, we shouldn’t be messing up this thread for everyone else. If you want to say more leave a comment on my blog. I might even answer it. But you are free there to call me everything you can come up with if it makes you feel better

    Like I said, you’re a liar and after this little gem you’re still going on. I don’t give a rat’s ass what you usta do, I still do and I’ll keep doing and I won’t make excuses and hide behind some lame “rank”.

  126. 126.

    Chuck Butcher

    @General Stuck:

    I’ve been called

    You are about as dumb as figment ought to be, there is somewhat of a difference between some made up non-reponsible figment of some pathetic keyboarder and an out in the open, searchable, reachable, in actual existance person. Fuckstuck.

  127. 127.

    General Stuck

    @Chuck Butcher:

    So your all pissed up cause I’m a fake General on a blog. And I’m the senile one? anyways, you know where to find me, in person or on this blog, anytime redneck clown.

  128. 128.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Jason:

    Of course, if the Democrats had faced up to this issue before the election, as many had been urging them to do, they wouldn’t be in this jam now.

    One of them urging them to do it: Obama. Resisting: the usual deficit hawks, aided and abetted by Democratic senators up for reelection, including Boxer and Murray and by some accounts Feingold.

  129. 129.

    Chuck Butcher

    @General Stuck:

    murderous motherfuckers I’ve faced down

    Oooh, the figment has a figment past … allegedly. It’s just bytes on the screen, you can however track me all over the damn place, no figments, boyo. What you can’t find is me as racist and I have no idea why you keep telling me I’m no liberal when I never indicated I wanted to be one.

  130. 130.

    General Stuck

    @Chuck Butcher:

    Nobody cares about your real name, or mine. But you have the opportunity to come see me in person, but won’t take it, and instead bluster about being out in the open, something nobody cares about but you, like that gives you some leg up on being right or superior, or something. It doesn’t. And the overwrought bullshit on this matter only makes it look like my opinion may actually have some merit. Your threats make me laugh.

  132. 132.

    Chuck Butcher

    @General Stuck:

    Your threats make me laugh.

    I see, pantswetter. I told you I wouldn’t let it go and you immediately wet your pants and started babbling about threats and violence and how you ‘usta be’ tough guy shit. Take some meds for that senility and pet your doggie, he’ll like you.

  133. 133.

    General Stuck

    @Chuck Butcher:

    You know where to find me, I said, because in that wingnut brain of yours, it is somehow important to know my name. If you come visit me, I will tell you. That is the point, I am making, and spare me the lie about there not being implicit threat of violence, in the original thread that has made you rabid.

  135. 135.

    General Stuck

    @Chuck Butcher:

    LOL, you’re a bigger clown than corner stone. You are the one who promised to not let this go and has completely lost their shit about it. You want me to not be a figment, then I will tell you in person. No violence from me. I am completely non violent to anyone that is non violent to me. I just want to get to know you Butcher, in person, so you will stop with the “figment” shit. Otherwise, just screw your head back and not be such a rabid wuss cause somebody on the internet said something mean to you. I have been ignoring you for a long time, until you insist on getting in my shit, and would be happy to keep on ignoring you. Jesus christ, go back a few threads, and look at all the shit I been called, including racist, reverse racist, you name it. I know it’s not true, so I forget about it right then and there.

  136. 136.

    FeFiFo

    Wow, this isn’t embarrassing or anything. Maybe if you two hyped-up ijits invested the time you spend being macho peacocks online into something productive…naaaaaaaaah

  137. 137.

    FeFiFo

    Hey we’re better than conservatives! We think straight! No anger fetishism here, no sir! *threatens to punch out blog commentators, puffs out chest*

  138. 138.

    General Stuck

    @Chuck Butcher:

    If you are saying that there wasn’t implicit violence in your comments from the original thread, then I will take your word for it, and that maybe I misunderstood your meaning, but if you need to know my name, so as to not be a figment anymore, you will have to come see me. That is all.

  139. 139.

    Chuck Butcher

    @General Stuck:

    I just want to get to know you Butcher, in person, so you will stop with the “figment” shit.

    Uh-huh. Figment was your word, I liked it. You must figure I have a really boring life that I’d travel over 1200mi to have a figment tell me its name. That’s asuming that isn’t all a figment, leaving 1200mi home in abject disappointment.

    Frankly, I stay out of the CSA as much as possible – I get real irritated listening to their horseshit, especially since I have enough pushing back to do at home without going where it’s really thick and really blatant.

  140. 140.

    singfoom

    @General Stuck: @Chuck Butcher:

    Jesus Christ. STFU, both of you. If it’s not people moaning the same complaints over and over again regardless of thread topic, it’s this internet toughguy horseshit? Please, go measure your e-penises elsewhere.

  145. 145.

    Chuck Butcher

    Redneck, funny where I live that’s a really mild epithet, almost like calling the sky blue. If my hair is shorter my neck is always tanned (I don’t get red) either sun or wind or cold and the others. This place is conservative, not so odd considering the consequences of getting out there in your life. It is really easy to get killed around here, traveling, working, or playing outdoors puts you in the way of all kinds of things that can bite you really badly. Making a living ranching or farming is an on the edge thing. People are reluctant to do things out of their experience and pretty careful about plenty of things that aren’t out.

    The racism/bigotry around here isn’t in little narrow pockets but it isn’t engaged in overtly – wouldn’t be neighborly. It’s the shitty kind, unspoken or only to those trusted with it. If something gets said and you mention the handful of blacks in the area, the response is, “oh they’re the good kind,” and you want to smack somebody. It doesn’t seem to be a majority thing, but a health minority – anyhow.

    Uncle Fed is as mixed blessing, he’s a pretty large employer and pays fairly well but he owns over half the county and pays no property taxes and costs money. Ag is a real business and Uncle Fed loves him some Ag.

    It’s an odd place for most folks, me too, but I like it a lot better than anyplace I’ve spent time. I have been around a bit.

  146. 146.

    Uriel

    @General Stuck:

    I blame Obama

    Obviously he’s at the heart of it, but the blue dogs played their role as well. In the end, the whole thing only serves to enrich the corporatists and their lap dogs in the military-industrial complex.

    As all things do.

  148. 148.

    Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)

    I wonder if Kos and Krugman are gonna give back their BIG fat tax cuts.

    Surely they’ll stand on principle and reject the blood money, won’t they?

  149. 149.

    Mnemosyne

    @Jason:

    Yes they could.

    Actually, they can’t, because in their infinite wisdom, the Democratic leadership didn’t do a 2011 budget because it would make the numbers look really bad right before the midterms. No budget, no option to push things through using reconciliation.

    The problem is, unlike Bush and Trent Lott in 2001, Obama and Reid have a marked reluctance to ram through things using the reconciliation process, instead preferring to build “consensus.”

    Given that the reconciliation process is not available to them in this situation because of the fecklessness of Congress, I will merely congratulate you on the very fine strawman you have constructed here.

  151. 151.

    Chuck Butcher

    I have a problem trying to wrap my head around the idea of a liberal or lefty cutting the nuts off an unemployed in this economy. I am aware of an anarchist sentiment that would like to see the whole thing explode into chaos – to teach us a lesson; I don’t share it.

    That doesn’t mean I don’t think it can go that way, I’m just real unsure what lesson would get learned. It’s like letting the banks fail, the revenge factor is appealing, but in the face of the chaos and suffering – um, maybe not.

    None of that means I don’t think this stinks to high heaven.

  152. 152.

    Suffern ACE

    @Mnemosyne: Yes. The Congress that would not tax cause it didn’t want the voters to assess their work, also didn’t want to spend because of same. Honestly. There may have been some very pragmatic reasons to do that at the time, as their was an election, and polls probably were looking desperate. The left might suck for their pony wanting liberalism, but it looks like the pragmatists suck for their irrational beliefs and poor planning. If the pragmatic wing is crappy at planning, what good are they? They are actually ust as dangerous than any dirty fucking hippie.

  153. 153.

    JenJen

    Long day-into-night of work, I come home, click around, find a juicy thread where I’m hoping everyone is piling on Mary Landrieu, because that would authentically relax me, and what is this then?

    Another flame war having nothing to do with the subject at hand.

    Ahhh well. Mary Landrieu sucks, as does her ilk, that’s my nickel. No point in expounding.

  154. 154.

    Uriel

    @Chuck Butcher:

    I am aware of an anarchist sentiment that would like to see the whole thing explode into chaos – to teach us a lesson; I don’t share it.
    …
    That doesn’t mean I don’t think it can go that way, I’m just real unsure what lesson would get learned.

    Same existential lessons that the fall of the Roman Empire taught us.

    Which is to say: witches burn, shit belongs in the street, and one’s natural and accepted place in the universe is to glory in a life that’s nasty, brutish and short.

    Until, a couple centuries later, someone like Hobbs comes along and points out that that isn’t the best way to go about it.

    In the meantime, suffering is pretty much the name of the game.

  155. 155.

    Chuck Butcher

    @Uriel:
    You could get something like the public’s response to FDR or you could get the response to the Wiemar Republic or you could get …

    St Ronnie and his “brain team” sold this idea of tax fairness and tinkle down economics and apparently the idea that shit is free. It was new then, now it common sense.

    What lesson is it anyone thinks that public is likely to learn? If the whole thing crashes the rich aren’t going to lose, they don’t do that.

  156. 156.

    Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)

    @Chuck Butcher:

    I have a problem trying to wrap my head around the idea of a liberal or lefty cutting the nuts off an unemployed in this economy…..

    None of that means I don’t think this stinks to high heaven.

    I admire that nuance. Good for you. I’m sad to say most lefties on the blogoshere and on tee vee only see black and white.

  158. 158.

    Suffern ACE

    @JenJen: Well, if it helps you relax and sleep better, I think she sucks, too. I still don’t know why that twerp tried to break into her closet and bug her office, as if she represented anything other than the way the wind was blowing at the moment.

  159. 159.

    Chuck Butcher

    Damn, I went out to the back awning to have a cigarette, it is raining steadily and the water is pouring off the roof onto my debris pile, about a thousand pounds of comp and a bunch of wood shingles. The only thing that will save me is if the rain keeps the temps above freezing otherwise I’m facing a giant ice cube of crap tomorrow. It is supposed to freeze tonight. Fuck.

  162. 162.

    dogwood

    @Mnemosyne:
    We now have democrats who are purveyors of “truthiness”. Once people cross that line it is pointless to argue with them. Studies show that people who believe untruths are more likely to double down when presented with facts than to change their minds. These people think you can pass legislation when you don’t have the votes. They believe the President can overturn DADT with an executive order. They believe he can close Gitmo when 90+ Senators voted to make that impossible. They believe reconciliation was available when in fact it was not. We didn’t get into this conservative hellhole overnight. It took the republicans decades to change attitudes about government, taxes, etc. Democrats believe changing policy will automatically change longstanding attitudes. Republicans understand you change attitudes and beliefs first, then you can do anything you want on the policy side. It was 16 years between Reagan’s introduction of the “welfare queen” and the Welfare Reform Act. Republicans understand you have to lay the groundwork before you can get what you want.

  163. 163.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Suffern ACE:

    There may have been some very pragmatic reasons to do that at the time, as their was an election, and polls probably were looking desperate. The left might suck for their pony wanting liberalism, but it looks like the pragmatists suck for their irrational beliefs and poor planning. If the pragmatic wing is crappy at planning, what good are they?

    I don’t think I would say that any of those senators were “pragmatists.” They were a-skeered. They weren’t trying to nudge the needle towards progress or liberal ends, except in the most minimal way, which is to say, trying to get re-elected as wishy-washy Democrats. The pragmatic thing to do is to take the left-most available option. I don’t think they did that; they just tried to use finesse and dodge responsibility. I don’t think any one of them could stand up and say that they were trying to make the most of a bad situation or seize upon a fleeting opportunity. To me, that would be the “pragmatist” choice.

  164. 164.

    NobodySpecial

    @Chuck Butcher: My problem with that mode of thinking is that that’s way to close to the ‘Nothing Can Be Done!’ Democrats who think they run this blog when Cole’s not paying attention.

  165. 165.

    Jewish Steel

    @dogwood:

    Well said. These ideas are so deeply entrenched with the average Joe that when I challenge them I am often met with blinking incomprehension.

    So, what are we doing to lay the ground work for expecting government to oversee a certain standard of social justice? If bloviating flame wars are part of that ground work then looks like we’re working overtime here.

  166. 166.

    Pat

    As the leader of the Democratic party I do not see Obama doing anything to correct their behavior, so he must condone it. On the other hand, just look at how McConnell can keep his people in lock step. How come? Well, it must be because Obama has absolutely no leadership skills, that’s how come. How can you tell? Because you have Democrats acting like Republicans whenever they see fit and Obama doesn’t say as much as “Boo” about it. Another way you can tell is at less than two full years in we are having GOP “compromises” being shoved down our throats — like it’s a good thing!

  168. 168.

    WhatAreWeDoing

    Pat said,
    “On the other hand, just look at how McConnell can keep his people in lock step. How come? Well, it must be because Obama has absolutely no leadership skills…”
    *************************************************

    Or could it be because 100% of Republicans are bought and paid for while only 50% of Democrats are, and that the media bends over backwards to to give credence to Republican talking points?

    Meanwhile, Republicans exhibit nothing but high praise for each other while we have been at each other’s throats from day one; as if we walked into a luxury economy.

  169. 169.

    xian

    not to mention it was a freakin’ social security surplus designed to “shore up” the “trust fund” in the second great cheap-suit hustle as the money was then given “back” to the wealthy (“you”).

    raise payroll taxes to secure social security, then refund that money to the wealthy and become concerned about solvency again. at least twice.

  172. 172.

    sukabi

    it also looks like from her website that she’s going to propose raising postage rates…. Mary’s Mail, postage on that stamp is 44Million dollars.. that’s one way to stop the flow of information.

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