I hope there is nothing to this and Kuttner is just wrong:
The tax deal negotiated by President Barack Obama and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is just the first part of a multistage drama that is likely to further divide and weaken Democrats.
The second part, now being teed up by the White House and key Senate Democrats, is a scheme for the president to embrace much of the Bowles-Simpson plan — including cuts in Social Security. This is to be unveiled, according to well-placed sources, in the president’s State of the Union address.
The idea is to pre-empt an even more draconian set of budget cuts likely to be proposed by the incoming House Budget Committee chairman, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), as a condition of extending the debt ceiling. This is expected to hit in April.
White House strategists believe this can also give Obama “credit” for getting serious about deficit reduction — now more urgent with the nearly $900 billion increase in the deficit via the tax cut deal.
How to put this politely? For a Democratic president, this approach is bad economics and worse politics.
Forget the internal Democratic divisions- last night they were flaming Obama at FDL for not enforcing DADT yet- before he had even signed it. The divisions are there already.
If Team Obama does this, he will be a one-termer, and beyond that Democrats will not hold the Presidency again in my lifetime, barring President Palin accidentally nuking Missouri. Democrats would be seen by the public at large as the party that bailed out banksters (incorrectly, but that is the perception), gave tax cuts to the rich, and then gutted social security while doing little for unemployment. For the last three of those, they’d be right.
The Democratic party will be finished if this is true. Sullivan will have wood, though- gay rights + shitting on the poor while stroking our Galtian overlords.
This would be a disaster.
Poopyman
Well, it’s Politico, so caveat emptor, big-time.
OTOH, the fact that this can even be discussed as a possibility amongst us (relatively) sane people is just depressing.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
John! For fuck’s sake man, it’s an unsourced Politico opinion piece!
Did the game derange your mind that badly?
Shalimar
I can’t think of a single reason why Obama should want to be the president who fucked up Social Security, but it does seem to consistently pop up on his agenda.
Alex S.
This might be a decoy to stifle any enthusiasm in the wake of the DADT repeal. Let’s wait for the actual address.
The debt ceiling extension should not be such a big issue after the bipartisan tax-cut vote. But it’s probably safer and more realistic to expect no shame from republicans.
Gravenstone
Oh goody, the main man is falling for the shit. I’m out for the night. I can’t handle this pearl clutching at unnamed sources.
LarsThorwald
Yeah, I’m skeptical, but isn’t it a sad thing where we’ve reached a point where we are at a point of even being skeptical about this?
LarsThorwald
Yeah, I’m skeptical, but isn’t it a sad thing where we’ve reached a point where we are at a point of even being skeptical about this?
Yutsano
@Shalimar:
Amended for accuracy.
John - A Motley Moose
All good points. He also won’t get reelected if he shoots a pink unicorn on the WH lawn or if he butt-fucks a statue of Jeebus on national tv.
NR
He did say “If this is true.”
Ann B. Nonymous
This definitely isn’t a ploy on Politico’s part of to remove all the wind from the sails from the Democrats over repealing DADT and start rancorous internal debates just in time for Monday morning’s news cycle.
Why, you’d be foolish to think so.
Just Some Fuckhead
Jeez, that would get my vote.
JenJen
Keeeee-rist. Already pre-gaming the SOTU? And from Politico, no less?
Let’s jump off this bridge when we get to it, eh?
freelancer
Well you’re right about Sullivan having wood. Dude is swooning:
4tehlulz
Kenneth/change is the well-placed source.
Svensker
@freelancer:
Ack. Sully. Ack.
There are times when I like the guy, and then there are times when I remember why I want to tump him off the George Washington Bridge. No life jacket.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
Color me skeptical. I’ll wait for the actual SOTU address and then decide whether or not to have a heart attack.
TR
@Poopyman:
Yeah, I exhaled when I saw that was where the link came from.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
It’s not just Politico, it’s Bob Kuttner. I heard him on Ed Schultz ten days or so ago–still have the old Air America pre-set on my car radio– and he’s pretty much a firebagger crank. It may turn out to be true, but this guy is not someone the WH would use to send up a trial balloon, IMO.
Just Some Fuckhead
I think Obama will do exactly what Kuttner lays out. I think it’s all been headed this way for awhile now. I further predict that we’ll all find a way to excuse it away, not really that bad, something had to be done, he protected us from the really bad cuts the nihilists were proposing, etc. etc. The plutocrats won a long time ago, now we’re just trying to figure out how to divide the crumbs they left us.
Morbo
That article needed to end with [citation needed].
NR
It is worth pointing out that the neoliberal wing of the Democratic party (which Obama represents) has had it in for Social Security for a long time now. Clinton was working with Newt Gingrich on cutting Social Security back in the 90s, until the Lewinsky scandal derailed everything.
jl
Well, just to be safe, people should start writing the WH that this is a suicidally bad idea.
Even the Bowles-Simpson (BS) pre-emptive minority catfood commission report admitted that the social security issue is not really relevant to solving the deficit problem. They right out admitted it was not part of the deficit’s commission’s tasks, but that it was just something they wanted to do. Because…. because… I’m not sure about the ‘because’ of it.
Just a very bad idea, both on substantive economic policy and political grounds.
So, probably will get done one way or the other. That is how economic policy is done by the Democrats these days, seems like.
But, I am in a glum mood.
Mike Kay (Team America)
I wouldn’t mind cutting all the earmarks. That’s what outrages he public the most.
when congress appropriates 5 billion for education, they don’t mind, in part because it’s abstract. But when they hear about seams on the surface some nutty project they go nuts and worse lose faith in government.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@NR: you forgot he’s also a secret muslim, who golfs on weekends with Bin Laden, and who will veto DADT this week.
Lolis
This is not on my list of things I am worried about. So far it seems like a total rumor. The Catfood Commission didn’t even complete its original mission of getting a vote in Congress. The president is simply not going to throw his support behind a failed commission that the majority of Americans have no clue about.
Alex S.
@NR:
Because….eh… the Lewinsky scandal forced Clinton to get liberal?
Mike Kay (Team America)
@jl: why so glum, repealing DADT isn’t so bad, the military will survive?
El Cid
Whether or not cuts to Social Security are announced at the SOTU or never occur under Obama, in my view they will happen. The move toward it has been building over time, and I just don’t possess any faith that it would be fixed in the proper, rational ways because there’s just too much conviction in establishment power and the servile mind-molded punditariat that ‘it has’ to be cut, because otherwise we’re all weak puppies unafraid to stand up to all those backward-looking parasites who don’t realize we all have to toughen up and leave these lazy luxury retirements behind otherwise we’ll bankrupt the country and listen to that nice man Pete Peterson. As long as it’s the kind of deal which looks smart and mature enough for enough Democrats to back and Republicans to be okay with, unlike the Bush Jr. move to partially privatize it, it seems to me inevitable. That said, I’ve been firmly convinced of all sorts of things, many of which happen and many of which don’t, at least haven’t yet.
jl
@Mike Kay (Team America): Since when is DADT is economic policy? I am glum about economic policy, not DADT being repealed.
Mike Kay (Team America)
btw, how many of you believe Bush was either behind the 9/11 attacks or knew about them and decided to nothing to manufacture a pretext to achieve his dream of invading iraq?
c’mon, you can admit it. you’re all anonymous here.
NR
@Alex S.: Basically, yes. Liberals were the only ones defending Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal. If they’d abandoned him, he would have been removed from office.
You can read all about the deal and the aftermath here. Much of the information comes from Erskine Bowles, who was involved in the negotiations – the same guy who Obama appointed to co-chair his deficit commission, incidentally.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@jl: glum about what part of economic policy?
gizmo
Robert Kuttner speaks the truth. If Obama was interested in the long term health of Social Security, he sure as hell wouldn’t have stacked that goofy Deficit Reduction Commission with 14 people who would love to take an axe to the program, and he sure as hell wouldn’t have appointed Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles as Joint Chairs. For chrissake you guys, does the handwriting on the wall need to be in caps for you to understand it?
jl
@Mike Kay (Team America): \
Your previous comment leads me to believe you are drinking heavily tonight.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Lolis:
This.
For 7 months we heard how the catfood commission was gonna cut social security in december and that nancy pelosi personally stabbed everyone in the back with her secret hitler like rules vote. In fact FDL ran blaring scare headlines to the effect on July 1st.
Chyron HR
@gizmo:
You’d think that if this unholy fusion of Dr. Claw and Cobra Commander had hatched such a diabolical scheme to destroy Social Security it might have, um, worked.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@jl: glum about what? just say it, don’t be embarrassed.
El Cid
@Lolis:
The first part, I’d agree with. I completely disagree with the notion that the deficit commission’s vote won’t be taken seriously because it only was approved by a majority rather than the originally specified 14 or whatever it was members strikes me as hugely incorrect.
Politicians and pundits who wish to move its recommendations forward simply have to note that (a) their report was ‘serious’ or ‘tough but necessary medicine, etc., and (b) a majority voted for it.
It has already been constantly cited since that ‘failed’ vote as the starting points for working on reducing the deficit and debt. (To the extent people think that it would.)
And Another Thing...
@El Cid: I’ll stipulate I don’t have a crystal ball, but it would be absolutely stunning if Dems agreed to any significant “cuts” to Social Security. And it would be extremely easy to demagogue cuts & the cutters. And the big financial black hole isn’t SS it’s Medicare.
Crippling SocSec has been a conservative wet dream for decades. Democrats would go batshit crazy on the warpath.
jl
@Mike Kay (Team America): I thouth Cole would email us all some of those great rumballs he snagged. But he didn’t. I feel betrayed.
Alex S.
@NR:
Hmm, I don’t know… it doesn’t seem very plausible to me. If Clinton had really wanted it, he could have had it done, and if the Lewinsky scandal really made such a huge impact, it should have made SS reform even more likely, because the Republicans definitely wanted it. Something about this narrative strikes me as odd, especially if it’s told by someone like Bowles.
Hawes
Obama has hewed pretty closely to his campaign rhetoric. He always said he was not going to raise taxes on the middle class, so he embraced Mitch McConnell slug-like visage to get it done. He said he would repeal DADT. START is important to him. The public option wasn’t.
I cannot for the life of me remember him talking about cutting social security. I can remember him saying he was really concerned about the middle class.
So I can’t see any cuts in SS.
Now, I could see means testing for people who are wealthier. That I could see.
But across the board benefit cuts?
That doesn’t sounds plausible.
Still, I may call the White House and freak out a little bit.
El Cid
@And Another Thing…: I hope you’re right. Maybe I’m just looking at the glass as half cracked.
And Another Thing...
@And Another Thing…:If Obama were to propose serious cuts in the SOTU speech his favorables will crater. Democrats, including me, would defect in droves. His current rating among Dems is IIRC about 70%,
It would be political suicide.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@gizmo: conspiracy theories abound on the far left, as well as the far right.
Look. Bush appointed a commission on Iraq in 2006 (The Iraq Study Group) and he rejected every single recommendation.
Back in 1997, Giulliani created a task force to examine police-community relations, after the brutal rape by cops of Abner Louima. He rejected all of their recommendations.
guess what 2006, 1997, and 2010 all have in common — they were election years for the individuals who appointed the commissions. they were gimmicks to blunt opposition criticism, nothing more. And that’s why all the commissions failed to change any policy.
but no, no. keep saying obama is a secret republican, it’s only fair, after all, the right will keep saying he’s a secret muslim.
WyldPirate
@And Another Thing…:
Obama has already agreed to cuts. You actually think that the payroll tax cut will go back to the old rates anytime soon?
Dream on….
Kenneth
Oh please. If he does announce cuts to SS half you sheep would say “it’s not so bad after all! What? You’re saying this shit sandwhich taste like shit? RAACIST! RACIST RACIST RACIST!
Mike Kay (Team America)
@jl: ye shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
c’mon tell me what part of economic policy makes you glum. I promise I won’t hammer you. see, I just put my hammer back into the tool box.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I’m guessing that Kuttner is right and that “well-placed sources” indeed said something like this to somebody. I wouldn’t sweat it, even if Obama does call for cuts in SS he’ll do it so vaguely as to give him all the wiggle room he needs to get out of it.
I’d be more concerned about the broader claim that he’ll “embrace much of the Bowles-Simpson plan.” Along with a few fairly benign suggestions was some seriously crazy-assed shit. I wouldn’t expect Obama to embrace any of it, but then I wouldn’t have expected him to embrace offshore drilling either.
Mike Kay (Team America)
And the conspiracy theory left is no different than the Lou Dobbs wingers who talk about the NAFTA superhighway and how the dollar will be converted to a US/Mexican “Amero”.
jl
Is Obama that nuts? Or are his current economic advisers insane?
A proposal to cut social security benefits would probably come with some age cut-off, probably 50 or 55. That would be justified on rationale that people above that age had pretty much fixed their retirement plans and it would be unfair to cut benefits for them.
If such a proposal looked like it would move forward to passage, everyone under that cut off would attempt to increase their savings of offset the anticipated loss in benefits.
That would not be good for the recovery. If it was not good for the recovery, the attempt to increase savings would fail. Obama would be actively harming an economic recovery in the short to medium term.
Forget the political theatre, it would be an insane thing to do for him.
If Obama does propose such a thing, then I would conclude that he has deeply misguided economic ideas, and is getting deeply misguided economic advice.
But, then, Chicago School economics has deeply infiltrated Chicago Law, in an even more vulgar form that it has become in the Chicago economics department itself.
I have no idea whether this idea is true or not. Everyone should drop the WH a little note about the badness of this idea, if it is true.
I have heard pundits and reporters say that the buzz is that the BS catfood commission is a starting point for deficit reduction, even if it did not result in the great holy grand unified vote to reduce the deficit. But even the BS catfood preport by Simpson and Bowles had some good ideas, just all their good ideas were too small.
We saw this week with the vote extending Bush tax cuts, how much Very Serious people and politicians really (do not) care (at all) about deficits, especially the total frauds called the Deficit Hawks. It is difficult to believe that any administration would be so suicidal.
But I will write them a friendly little note anyway.
And Another Thing...
@El Cid: I think part of the dynamic is the beltway/cable echo chamber cause that can feel like momentum. Most of the talking heads don’t care about SocSec cause it’s a minimal piece of their retirement. For them it’s policy wonk stuff. For millions of people it’s the biggest piece of their future. Defined benefit plans are pretty rare these days, people lost $$$ in the last couple of years & their biggest asset – their house tanked in value. People are felling really insecure & vulnerable.
Plus don’t forget the public’s reaction to Bush’s campaign to change SocSec. The longer that issue was out there, the worse the polling. And that was in relative boom times.
Plus, there’s no pressing reason to take the fight. Medicare’s a different story.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): and on December 1st, he imposed a 7-year ban on offshore drilling.
of course he only banned drilling because he’s a secret republican.
Karen
Is it a coincidence that this “news” is released the day after the repeal of DADT is passed?
I’ve finally realized that it really doesn’t matter what Obama does, people want him dead anyway. Either the Republicans who want him politically dead. Or the firebaggers who want him physically dead because that way Hilary Clinton can take her place from the man who dared usurp her.
The Republicans know that if Obama fails, the country which has an attention span of a dead gnat, will embrace the Republicans so humiliating Obama at the ballot box will be good enough for them.
Jane Hamsher and co., PUMA and every firebagger know that as long as Obama is on this earth, he will always gain attention that only Hilary Clinton deserves. The air he breathes is air that Hilary Clinton can be breathing. The food he eats could be nourishing Hilary Clinton. Every heartbeat Obama has is a heartbeat that Hilary Clinton should be having.
Therefore he needs to be Nobamanomore.
What choice do they have? Obama’s marriage is solid so there are no Lewinskies with a stained dress and no Linda Tripp to hear it. His children are young and well behaved as Chelsea was at that age so there will be no Bush girls alcholism or Bristol Palin buns in the oven. Their only hope is if President acts like too much of an “angry black man” (to quote the media) for “hard working Americans”( to quote Hilary Clinton.) Good luck with that.
SIA
@Ann B. Nonymous: BINGO.
Mnemosyne
@El Cid:
Here’s the problem, though — the Bowles/Simpson PowerPoint presentation was NOT the report from the deficit commission. It was something they cooked up on their own to undermine the actual deficit commission’s report. That’s why they called their own personal press conference a week before the report from the actual commission was due.
The actual report has sensible proposals that would strengthen Social Security, like raising the withholdings cap to $250,000. That is emphatically not the kind of thing that Bowles & Simpson were proposing.
Please don’t conflate the B&S PowerPoint presentation and the deficit commission’s report, because they bear very little resemblance to one another, which is exactly what B&S were hoping would happen.
ETA: Here’s a link to the real commission report (PDF), not the bullshit from B&S.
jl
@Mike Kay (Team America):
Economic policies likely to be adopted will not aid recovery. Even mild and overly expensive stimulus created by extending tax cuts will be undercut by what I read are schemes likely to be proposed by WH, such as regressive tax reform, or (heaven forbid) a nutso proposal to cut future social security benefits.
So, likely outcome will be an economic 1939 for long term, but with less productive economic investment now than then.
Therefore glum.
Are you happy now?
a1
I’m really disappointed with Obama on a number of the things he’s done. And when you’re disappointed in someone, you’re naturally inclined to believe he would be willing to do all sorts of stupid nasty things.
But thinking Obama’s going to suggest cutting Social Security in the State Of The Union is going too far. For one thing, the timing of this “news” stinks. Really – “Democratic operatives” think it’s a good idea, right after DADT passing, to suggest Obama’s going to mess with the greatest Democratic program in history? Come on! Even if Obama was going to do that, he wouldn’t start talking about it so soon after a progressive victory, and definitely not during the holiday season so people spend Christmas 2010 worrying what’ll happen to SocSec in 2011!
And also keep in mind that he’s been so accommodating to the Republicans in making deals, they could have put a lot more effort to lay the groundwork for such a move with either the Deficit Commission and the Simpson pre-emptive Commission Strike. The Republicans on the “investigation” of the Wall Street banking crisis had no problem putting out propaganda that didn’t even use the words “Wall Street” – you think if Obama really wanted SocSec cut, he couldn’t have dealt with Simpson to produce this total BS report about Social Security “in crisis”, and wave that around during the SOTU?
But hey – if Obama actually does put this idea out there during the SOTU, he should be thanking us for kicking him out of office. Because he’ll have shown he doesn’t want to be President for a second term – like a depressed person waving a gun around a police station to get Cop-Assisted Suicide, he’ll be committing Electoral-Assisted Political Suicide.
Mike Kay (Team America)
This conspiracy theory is no different than the wingers who insist that Obama is gonna take their guns away and impose Sharia law.
as I’ve said numerous times, there is not a dime’s worth of difference btwn the firebaggers and the teabaggers.
Ugga Bugga.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Mike Kay (Team America):
.
.
but no, no. keep saying obama is not a secret republican, it’s only fair, after all, the right will keep saying he’s not a christian.
.
.
magurakurin
Hasn’t it already happened? What was it, born after 1960 the new cutoff they picked a ways back? I don’t remember, but I do know I didn’t make the cut since I was born after the date and my full retirement age is 67 not 65. I certainly won’t be happy if they do it again, whoever does it, but I’m among a large number who’ve already been fucked.
Kenneth
@Karen:
More 11 Dimensional Chess from the Obots.
agrippa
@Karen:
So, is this firebagger business about Hillary Clinton?
I have been wondering about that; Obama is president and not Clinton? It comes to that? very sad, if true.
In a way that makes little sense, as Clinton, more likely than not, would have done much as Obama has.
Hawes
@jl: Which is why I think this is bullshit. Again, I could see him addressing means testing for wealthier Americans, some sort of cap on benefits for people who are already wealthy with bursting 401Ks (there have to be a few of them, don’t they?)
But this seems to fly in the face of everything he’s done his whole life.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@jl:
what policies are pending adoption? Seriously, I don’t watch cable news, so I have no idea what pending proposals obama has on his desk.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Mike Kay (Team America):
.
.
as I’ve said numerous times, there is not a dime’s worth of difference btwn the balloonbaggers and the teabaggers.
.
.
agrippa
@Kenneth:
Drivel
Kenneth
Of COURSE he would release it after DADT repeal.
Why?
Because the good little sheep got their cookie crumbs from their Corporate Owners, and now they can go ahead and gut Social Security like a fucking fish while the sheep are distracted by their shiny, minor object.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Hawes: good point.
would anyone object to means testing for SS or a cap on upper income recipients (ie should wealthy retirees be tapping into the system)? Your thoughts are welcome (even conspiracy theories).
And Another Thing...
@WyldPirate: Show me where Obama has agreed to cuts in Social Security benefits. Because of the recession/unemployment SS receipts might be temporarily in deficit. But since the Reagan SS changes in the 80’s SS has been running surpluses that have been used to fund general spending. I understand & don’t discount the optics of a temp tax holiday & classic Dem fears, but as stimulus policy it’s fast and cheap to implement, & provides steady spending as opposed to the showy give everybody a one time check.
IMHO it was a legitimate political decision.
Mnemosyne
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Given how often people conflate the Bowles/Simpson PowerPoint presentation and the actual draft report from the actual commission, I’d want to see the direct quote from the source specifying that it’s the B&S version and not the actual commission’s version.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Kenneth:
right, DADT is a crumb. See, the left has their fair share of bigots and homophobes.
xephyr
IF Obama messes with social security he’ll be entering GWB territory… but without the excuse of being a clueless dumbass.
SiubhanDuinne
@SIA:
:: wave ::
mclaren
The only thing likely to be incorrect about this unsourced report is that it doesn’t depict Obama selling out sufficiently. What Obama actually does to betray Democrats is likely to be much worse.
Speaking of which…you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
Secret GOP plan: push states to declare bankruptcy and smash unions.
The basic idea is that the House will pass legislation allowing states to declare bankruptcy, then the individual states will use a version of “cramdown” to slash pension benefits already agreed to for public employees. The public employee unions are the last remaining bastion of unionized workers, and the GOP desperately wants to get rid of all unions everywhere in America. This should do the trick.
Next up: fire all the cops and firemen and prison guards and instead hire illegal immigrants for sub-minimum wage with the proviso that if they serve 5 years, they get automatic citizenship.
See Are the American People Obsolete?
El Cid
@Mike Kay (Team America):
Sure, but the judgment call is whether or not some appointed commission’s recommendations are something a politician or set of politicians are vehemently opposed to — as Bush Jr. was to this challenge to his policy of not getting out of Iraq.
In fact it was right after the ISG report that pissed off the Bush Jr and Cheneyites so much [well, that and more significantly the 2006 Democratic victory in Congress with an openly declared goal to begin getting out of Iraq] that the shopping around for a new policy not like the ISG report started in earnest, leading to the surge recommendation report by Kagan and Keane, via the American Enterprise Institute.
I didn’t say anyone had to follow the deficit commission’s majority-supported report. It’s on any individual politician to decide whether or not he or she wishes to support that report or various recommendations.
And I certainly didn’t suggest that Obama would take the deficit commission’s report and just do it.
I suggested that many politicians and pundits were already basing discussions upon that report, and that use is of course not in any way forced, but chosen. Many others will disagree.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Uncle Clarence Thomas: oh, did I hurt your fee fees? good.
Hawes
Kuttner’s not a fan of Obama’s? Right?
So who is his source?
Who in the administration is leaking this?
And again, how does this gibe with everything we know about him and what he’s done so far? Leaving Afghanistan and executive power shit off the table – where I’m with the detractors – what exactly has he ever done to suggest he didn’t have the interest of working people closest to his heart?
Was it his secret years as a Republican mole in a community organizer’s role?
Was it his secret Republican work to give health insurance to millions and millions of working Americans?
When I see what he’s done, I see a guy who always says, “What gives the most benefit to the most people.” That seems to be his yardstick.
I can’t make this fit.
Still, I hope the White House shits on this report and then douses in gasoline and lights it on fire.
gwangung
@Kenneth: No, Above Room Temperature IQ.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@Mike Kay (Team America):
Not exactly, but he did roll it back to where it was before the worst environmental catastrophe in American history. Bold move.
jl
@Mike Kay (Team America):
Do I have my own personal coy troll now? WTF?
Read Krugman, Stiglitz, DeLong, or Mark Thoma. They will explain it all to you.
Kenneth
@Hawes:
THANK YOU somebody GETS IT!
This country is very very close to being FUCKED BEYOND REPAIR by the GOP Class War and it’s Conseradem enablers.
El Cid
@Mnemosyne: You’ll note that I only mentioned the report as voted upon, and not Bowles / Simpson. Others here have. Just to be clear about who said what.
[Also, I should add that I think that for many politicians, they won’t feel the need to so much as exactly follow the final report, as much as reference it as a justification for any approach they wanted. Like I said before, maybe here, I just didn’t feel confident that sane reforms to SS would occur, that cuts would get the focus. That’s just my grok of the zeitgeist, blah.]
Chyron HR
Well, the important thing is that everybody get in a circle and start shooting now. After all, if we wait and actually see what happens, he might not abolish Social Security, and then we’d have missed the chance to fight about it.
jcricket
This country’s safety net already sucks. If Obama & Co cuts Social Security I will finally become one of those liberals I hate and start looking into moving to Canada. It’s not just whatever cuts he announces – it’s that you know Medicare voucherization will be next, and those won’t be the last Social Security cuts (privatization will be next). It’ll be decades before any of those cuts are restored, at best, because it’s taken 50 years to get to this point. Why even bother having a Democratic party?
There is no reason to cut SS benefits. There is no reason to increase the retirement age. Increase payroll taxes on those earning $250k and up, problem solved. SS has never contributed a single cent to the deficit (by law), and in fact runs a surplus until 2037. That we’re even talking about SS cuts before military cuts, or taxes on the rich – and that a Democrat might lead that charge – makes me want to fucking puke.
Medicare’s problems could be dramatically reduced if Medicare was the public option – and whatever cost control issues it has after that can’t be solved simply by cutting Medicare – that’ll just force sick old people into the ER. Then what happens when all the ERs go bankrupt from the unreimbursed care? I guess old people dying instead of getting care is an acceptable solution?
If Democrats don’t stand for protecting SS and Medicare, they stand for nothing.
Hawes
@Chyron HR: Well played!
WyldPirate
@And Another Thing…:
It is an opening to weaken the level of receipts. That’s all the opening the Rethugs need. You give them an inch and they take a mile.
Besides, the least well off–couple’s making under 40K and individuals making 20K and under are worse off and will take home less next year than last with the discontinuation of “Make work Pay”. The payroll tax holiday doesn’t offset the loss of that for those people.
The most well to do in the country made out like bandits. The stimulative effect will be minimal for everyone else.
Mnemosyne
@El Cid:
So which part about Social Security of the actual commission’s report do you object to: the idea of raising the cap to $250,000 from its current level of $106,800, the idea of changing the rates to make them more progressive, or their idea of increasing the minimum benefit paid out to retirees?
NR
@Hawes:
Since he didn’t “give” health insurance to millions and millions of working Americans, but rather forced them to buy it with their own money, yes. That was the Republican health care reform proposal from 1993, and Obama embraced it wholeheartedly.
Hawes
The sad thing is, if this turns out to be bullshit – and I think and hope it is bullshit – it won’t matter to the people who have generated 1000+ comments at Daily
KosTroll.So, when Gibbs comes out tomorrow (I hope, I hope) and says that the President will not countenance any cuts in SocSec, this will only be confirmation that the White House is lying.
And that’s what’s so fucking sad about all this.
Mike Kay (Team America)
Right Wing Conspiracies.
1. obama will impose Sharia law.
2. the US will change currency from the dollar to the Amero.
3. Obama will ban guns.
4. Obama is a racist with a deep seated hatred of white people.
5. Obama is a muslim terrorist.
6. Obama wasn’t born in the US
7. Obama is a Nazi
Left Wing Conspiracies
1. Obama will cut social security.
2. Obama will veto the DADT repeal
3. Obama is a secret republican.
4. Obama doesn’t want to leave Iraq.
5. 9/11 involved US assistance.
6. Obama is a Nazi
Hawes
@NR: Of, ferfucksake…
How about the extensive subsidies that will allow people to buy the damned health insurance? The subsidies are what make it work.
I don’t give a fuck if it was the GOP’s plan in 1992. In 1992, the GOP was not batshit insane. It’s not a perfect plan, but it makes health insurance affordable for millions of people who can’t afford it now.
I guess it pales in comparison to all the plans that Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Teddy Kennedy, Carter and Clinton passed.
Mnemosyne
@jcricket:
Would you be surprised to hear that the real report from the actual commission proposes doing just that, in addition to increasing the minimum benefit paid to retirees?
Again, we need to be very clear here if we’re talking about the PowerPoint presentation that Bowles/Simpson put on to undermine the commission’s report, or if we’re talking about the actual commission’s real report. Of course B&S and the Republicans want us to confuse the two — that way, people will resist raising the cap to $250,000 because OMG OBAMA WANTS TO KILL SOCIAL SECURITY!!
JenJen
@mclaren:
Wait… so the GOP has undertaken a secret, coordinated effort in all 50 states wherein a shadow framework of private schools exists, currently training illegal immigrants to be cops, firemen and prison guards, so that the seamless transition of public-to-private is completely painless, and goes unnoticed by the people? Wow, they’re more capable than I ever would have imagined.
Suck It Up!
Jesus Christ some of you are fucking insane. Common sense and facts just go WOOSH! down the toilet or what? I feel like I’m reading DKOS half the time. That anyone would believe these silly thiswashisplanthewholetime theories says a lot about you guys and the liberal blogosphere than it does Obama.
Common sense and facts are your friends. Stop buying into whatever the paranoid left says. Its not a good look.
El Cid
@Hawes: Anything is possible, and I don’t think that in reality — as opposed to the meta-issue of discussing things which appear in Politico and thus will get discussion in lots of places, justifiably or more typically not — this Kuttner opinion piece should be treated as journalism.
Maybe there are real sources who know something. Maybe if there were real sources of the sort needed they represented opinions and viewpoints on one particular side of a many-sided internal debate. Maybe there were sources but they really weren’t the ones able to report what Obama would or wouldn’t do at the SOTU or even how debates on SS are shaping up. Maybe there were sources who were misrepresenting their access to knowledge, etc. Maybe there weren’t any sources.
I mean, not treated as real journalism, not the hokey stuff which typically passes for journalism.
Whatever a person thinks will happen on SS from Obama or not happen or whatever, there is no current reason to believe that this Kuttner opinion piece has any status as investigative journalism of any kind.
Hawes
@Mike Kay (Team America):
Well, I’m gaining a deep seated hatred of white people, too.
And I’m white.
Fucking internets….
Mike Kay (Team America)
@jl: it’s sad that you are unable to explain yourself, to form a paragraph, to construct an argument, but it’s not surprising.
Hawes
@El Cid: So, to summarize:
“as quoted in Politico” is all we need to know?
Just Some Fuckhead
@jl: There is something wrong with him.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Hawes: well, if even the liberal Politico says it, it must be true. Just like when FDL said Nancy Smash was gonna slash social security.
WyldPirate
@JenJen:
That’s not it at all.
This is about not continuing a program called “Build America Bonds” program that is helping to finance up to ~20% of state and local debt. If that goes, the theory is that it could force a couple of the more financially stressed states to declare bankruptcy.
If this stresses the states and if the GOP can grease the wheels to allow the states to declare bankruptcy–the idea is that it would allow the bankrupt states to renegotiate public employee union contracts. Sorta like how Obama fucked over the UAW with the GM and Chrysler bailout.
Mnemosyne
@El Cid:
… except to the extent that it validates certain people’s paranoid fears so they’ll be less likely to listen to the actual recommendations from the commission, all of which appear to be pretty sensible and will result in Social Security being strengthened.
It’s what the Republicans are so good at: setting up a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. If nothing is done, benefits will need to be cut in 20 years or so. But now the B&S PowerPoint presentation has successfully convinced people that any recommendation from the commission must be bad, so they’ll object to any change at all, even ones that would strengthen SS.
Mike Kay (Team America)
it’s stunning how uninformed and conspiratorial lefties are. the mirror version of palin. digya guys go to 6 colleges in 5 years, as well?
Suck It Up!
this song is very appropriate for these discussions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irBP5FnksKc
Why are you so paranoid
Don’t be so paranoid
Don’t be so….
Baby don’t worry about it
Lady don’t even think about it
You worry bout the wrong things, the wrong things
You worry bout the wrong things, the wrong things
You worry bout the wrong things, the wrong things
You worry bout the wrong things, the wrong things
Enough already.
And Another Thing...
@WyldPirate: Personally I am tired of litigating the tax bill that just passed.
and of course your observation:
It is an opening to weaken the level of receipts. That’s all the opening the Rethugs need. You give them an inch and they take a mile.
is classic Democratic doctrine.
My basic points are that 1) unless somebody around here is a precog we don’t know what Obama will propose. 2) NO ONE has done the political and PR ground work for significant SS changes remotely like the work that was done before the Reagan changes done in the 80’s. 3) It would be political suicide for Obama to announce changes without significant preparation of the electorate. I haven’t seen any suicidal behaviors.
Hawes
@WyldPirate: Yeah, the UAW got fucked over, but they also kept their jobs. And people up and down the supply chain kept their jobs. And if GM and Chrysler had gone under, the UAW would still have been fucked.
Shorter version: the UAW was fucked by the poor business acumen at the head of the auto industry. Obama sacked the people at the head of the auto industry and they kept their jobs.
I can’t get worked up about Obama killing UAW by saving their jobs.
pattonbt
@El Cid: I think this is pretty much spot on. “Time to tighten up the belt”, “Time to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps” etc. The game was lost long ago and the pendulum has swung. One way or another (stronger means testing, raising ages, etc) SS is going to get “cut”. “I mean, look at Europe, even they are doing it!!”.
WyldPirate
@Mike Kay (Team America):
You’re one to talk thinking that earmarks are some sort of budgetary problem you numerically illiterate dingleberry.
jl
@Mike Kay (Team America):
I gave you names of economists who will explain why the economic outlook is not bright, in the short or medium run. And why policies that should have been adopted have not been adopted, and why we are only hearing prolicy proposals from the GOP or the WH that will not do anything to change that, or will make things worse. And that is why I am glum.
What, pray tell, do you not understand?
Go google the names and read their blogs.
WyldPirate
@Hawes:
It cut the pay of those people in half. They went from 28/hr to 14/hr. IT took their wages back 25 years.
These were the middle class jobs of the entire Midwest. The UAW was the pacesetter for wages in manufacturing for decades.
Kenneth
Hippie Punching for Dummies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAebN9xf2PE&feature=player_embedded
JenJen
@WyldPirate: Thanks, but I already understand the “plan.”
I just fail to see how the GOP (in concert with business) is suddenly so breathtakingly organized and efficient across 50 states to the extent they could pull off this kind of nefarious plan, that’s the point I’m making.
Maybe I’m just not in freak-out mode yet? I still view this as the party led by John McCain, Michael Steele, John Boehner and Sarah Palin.
And Another Thing...
@WyldPirate: You know, wouldn’t it be useful if someone actually knew the law(s) on state “bankruptcy” before we predicted what they could or could not do on renegotiating union contracts. It might be uninformed to assume the rules would be the same as for corporations.
I don’t remember a state going bankrupt in the last 40 years. Some have had liquidity issues, and harmful bond ratings, but bankrupt? Maybe I’ll go consult the google.
Hawes
@jl: There are a host of pretty good indicators that the economy is turning around.
Krugman himself has been a little bit inconsistent about whether the problems with unemployment are structural or cyclical, basically taking whichever position seems to fit the argument that he’s making at the moment.
And I love the Wooly Professor.
Check out Bondad’s blog:
http://bonddad.blogspot.com/
He aggregates a ton of economic information. Bottom line, most of the lagging sectors of the economy: retail and employment are finally starting to perk up.
If this is a “typical” post-financial crisis situation, we should see some real turn around over the next two years.
For the first time in a while, I’m optimistic about the economy.
Mike Kay (Team America)
When the SOTU comes and goes in 5 weeks and no mention is made of slashing social security, what will you guys say then?
You already have egg on your face for insisting all year that Obama and Nancy Smash were gonna ram through the catfood commission in early december, complete with deep cuts to social security.
At what point does this conspiracy theory die?
this reminds me of the consistent rumor during shrub’s administration about how he was hours away from invading/bombing Iran, and there was always some secret troop movements from some rag cited and yet it never happened and CT never died.
Ross Hershberger
This had better be a false alarm. A lot of Dems will NOT roll over for losing Soc Sec.
I’m going to sleep now. There may be Scotch involved.
Hawes
@WyldPirate: Last I checked, $14 an hour is better than not having a job. And am I correct that this if for new hires? That was my memory of it.
I would also guess that most of those plants down in the Sunbelt pay around $14 an hour. So, we can bemoan the fact that most of the midwest is a hollowed out shell because of both NAFTA and “right to work” states like Alabama, or we can let these people keep their jobs.
If the choice is A) Do the unions win. or B) Do hundreds of thousands of people keep their jobs, I go with B.
Kenneth
@Hawes:
Maybe if you’re a Wall St. Bankster the economy is “turning around”, but not if you’re a middle class worker watching his job be shipped of to China as this country ceases to manufacture ANYTHING but bombs anymore.
WyldPirate
@And Another Thing…:
I wasn’t clear when I wrote that. I’m pretty sure that states can’t declare bankruptcy but municipalities can. That’s what I meant about the GOP trying to “smooth the way”–ie in changing bankruptcy laws.
SIA
@SiubhanDuinne: Hey SD! Just sent you an email!
Mike Kay (Team America)
@WyldPirate: I said no such thing. But of course, being an idiot, like palin, you lack reading comprehension.
Hawes
@Ross Hershberger: Right behind you, as soon as I can unscrew the cap on the tequila bottle…
I can’t decide what saddens me more.
That Obama might, just possibly, but probably not, cut social security, despite every policy utterance to the contrary.
Or the automatic assumption on the Left that every malignant rumor about Obama must be true.
Maestro Dobel! Take me away!
Ross Hershberger
@Hawes:
The view from here in Detroit at the fringes of the industry is different. Big 3 management gave the Unions what the membership wanted short-term, which was raises, vacations & more perks in the 80s – 90s. Then they eliminated jobs by automating production. Union membership will never reach 1975 levels again. The rank and file voted for their short term interests every damn time for 35 years and never saw the unions eroding away from underneath them. Then one day the unions were too weak to do shit and Management finally made them their bitch.
EDIT: Now I AM going to sleep.
amk
John Cole. Have you ever considered joining the great kossacks community at the prescient dkos ?
Here are the advantages of joining this politically active and strategically smart community.
….
….
….
….
….
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Mnemosyne: Thanks for the link. That will definitely be something to keep up with as people start talking about this.
Mike Kay (Team America)
I’m bookmarking this thread.
I can’t wait to mock and expose every dickface who said/implied that obama will announce cuts to social security in the SOTU.
Oh, it’s gonna be sweet.
metalgirl
@jl: Recipe is posted in comment 101 in the latest open thread :) They are a little bit of work but worth it!
junebug
I haven’t read the thread, but that thing you linked to sounds like Drudge.
just sayin’
WyldPirate
@Hawes:
Must be nice that you’re making the choice for them.
That’s the whole problem though, and this sort of attitude is why the middle class is falling apart. There has been an all out assault on the very things that made the middle class in the first place–the unions.
People fucking fought and died for years for better work conditions and better pay. That is going by the wayside now, those new workers are going back to the straight non-inflation adjusted wages of 20 years ago. These are the same group of people–who prior to the trashing of the UAW contacts–whose wages have been stagnant or regressed for the past 25 years while the top 5% have been taking an ever larger piece of the pie with each decade.
the fenian
I would like one person to explain to me why the president picked the likes of Bowles and Alan Simpson to head the commission. A greased-up lobbyist and a member of the walking dead who hasn’t been relevant since half-past vice-president Gore. He could have done better than that and didn’t. He didn’t need 60 votes in the Senate. These were his guys. Seriously, if he doesn’t want to “reform” SS – in his mind, I’m sure, to stop Galtian fantasts like Ryan from immolating it — why these guys?
Hawes
@Kenneth:
Except you’re wrong.
Manufacturing has recovered to roughly where it was prior to the recession.
http://bonddad.blogspot.com/2010/12/2010-year-of-bifurcated-recoveries.html
Employment still lags, but those areas of the economy are starting to rehire. Manufacturing and many industrial pursuits are enjoying a V shaped recovery.
But housing (surprise) and retail have NOT seen much recovery at all. Retail may finally be turning around because excess demand may finally thawing some, but construction is going to lag for years.
On the other hand, tough to outsource construction jobs to China. Excess capacity is the problem, not outsourcing.
Ron Beasley
I for one believe it – that’s what the payroll tax holiday was all about. But the bottom line is it really doesn’t matter. The entire house of cards that is the world economic and financial system is going to come crashing down. If not before 2012 shortly there after when we discover that peak cheap oil is real.
Dennis SGMM
Whatever happens, I believe that having those Democrats who honestly believe that Obama could have done better get a pejorative label while those who honestly believe that Obama is doing the best that he can get another pejorative label is nothing but good news for whatever bag of shit the GOP nominates in 2012.
It’s a Good Thing that the party won’t be headed for the fight of its life after two years of a Republican House.
It’s also a Good Thing that this kind of crap only happens on blogs where the interest in politics is way way higher than it is in the rest of the populace. All those poor, unenlightened fools will notice is that there aren’t any jobs.
Kenneth
@Hawes:
Yes, so you import illegal immigrants.
Most of the stuff we “manufacture” are either weapons or “goods” like processed dogfood.
Whens the last time you saw an American-made TV, or laptop, or cell phone, or shoes?
Kenneth
@Ron Beasley:
Exactly!
Peak oil will be one of the things that brings this country crashing the fuck down.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Ron Beasley: digya know the muslims are building a “victory mosque” at ground zero to commemorate their 9/11 triumph. It’s true, I read it on the internet, and after all they are building.
junebug
@Mike Kay (Team America): I’ll be here cheering you on. Every time people get worked up over nonsense, there is so much work to do.
Yes, I’m STILL fighting this lie more than a month later.
amk
@Ron Beasley: 2012 it will be. Both Mayans and Palin told me that the world will be coming to an endin 2012. I mean, both south and north ? Think about that for a while… Makes sense, doesn’t it ?
tomvox1
@Mike Kay (Team America):
Fixed. Bush couldn’t find his tallywacker on a sunny day with the aid of Day-Glo paint. But a big fat “Yes!” as amended. ;)
Mnemosyne
@Hawes:
I think that’s because it’s both/and, not either/or. Our current problems are cyclical in the short term, but structural in the long term. At least, that’s how I’ve read Krugman.
Hawes
BTW, here’s what Obama had to say about Soc Sec when he ran for office.
From this, I’d say he will try and end the $97K cap…
http://www.ontheissues.org/economic/barack_obama_social_security.htm
tomvox1
Fuck, John, that Jets beatdown must’ve soured your milk for the evening. At least I sure hope so ’cause this Politico scenario is just too horrible to ponder… Unlike, say, a Jets Super Bowl win! Yeah, baby! Woot!
Dennis SGMM
@Hawes:
Removing the cap on SS earnings would be a tough sell, particularly with a Republican House, because benefits are currently capped.
Mike Kay (Team America)
BREAKING NEWS
Daily kos is reporting that “Obama to eat a live kitten during State of the Union“.
It has to be true. It’s on daily kos. Hide your kittens.
Dennis SGMM
@Mike Kay (Team America):
You always add so much to any discussion. Do you have a newsletter?
Anya
Why, oh, why didn’t I just go to bed without reading this garbage? You people are losing your shit over an speculative piece from POLITICO, for heaven’s sake.
Yutsano
@Dennis SGMM: I may not agree with you all of the time, but if I have not told you I appreciate your sardonicism I have been remiss good sir.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Mnemosyne:
We really need to raise the cap on SS. Incomes are not worth what they used to be and income levels in some professions have skyrocketed compared blue collar wages. Add in the loss of good paying blue collar jobs to overseas workers and you have a future funding problem.
The wage cap needs to be raised, quite considerably IMO.
As far as the cuts happening, I will wait to hear (or read) about it in the SOTU. Until then, contrary to what the internet experts say, it’s little more than speculation, which is a waste of time better spent on other issues. Sure, sound off to Obama and your reps about it but I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it until there is something concrete to ‘chew’ on.
Or continue running around waving your hands in the air while yelling WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!
Whatever turns your crank, especially if you are a crank!
Brachiator
If this actually came to pass, it would mean that the Democratic Party had long ceased being anything but a cover for the oligarchs.
It would be the greatest betrayal of liberalism since the Liberal Democrats joined with the Conservatives in the UK.
Hmm. I guess there is a precedent for this.
Dollared
@Hawes: Yeah. Because the Obama White House delivers its messages with blinding speed and absolute clarity.
Oh yeah, and consistency. That’s it. Consistency is Rahm/Erkine/gibb/orszag/summers middle names.
jl
@Mike Kay (Team America): Grow up. Was that they point of your silly trolling? I never said that. What I said, IIRC, was tht IF it were true, it would bad economic policy as well as bad politics.
I did recommend that people contact the WH to encourage them to follow good policy.
Do you have a problem with that recommendation?
Lord, you must be drunk tonight.
scarshapedstar
And John takes a big ol’ toke from the Firebag. Maybe if he put that thing down he’d be able to CLAP LOUDER.
And Another Thing...
@Hawes: Thanks for that link.
mclaren
@JenJen:
It’s hardly secret. And there’s no “shadow framework.” The privatisation of the U.S. military and local police forces has gone on right out in the open, and is accelerating. And yes, to date, very few people have remarked on it.
See Military privatization run amok, 23 October 2010.
This is ongoing. U.S. soldiers continue to be replaced by private mercs at an increasing rate. There are now more mercs in Iraq than U.S. soldiers. The American military presence in Iraq has actually increased since Obama issued his so-called ‘withdrawal” order, but most people don’t realize it because most of the U.S. military presence in Iraq is now private contractors.
The privatisation of police in America is an old story. Obviously you’re not aware of it, but giving private rent-a-cops full police powers to search and arrest people and use deadly force if desired has been a major goal of American corporations and it has been largely attained.
See More security firms getting police powers in the San Francisco Chroncle, 7 January 2007.
Or simply google “The Privatization of Police In America: An Analysis and Case Study” by James F. Pastor.
Or google the Washington Post article “The Private Arm Of the Law: Some question the granting of police powers to private security firms,” 2 January 2007.
We all understand that you’re ignorant of these well-known facts, JenJen, but merely because you don’t realize the extent to which Republicans and their corporate paymasters have succeeded in privatising basic police services and the U.S. army over the last 30 years doesn’t mean that everyone is unaware of the massive ongoing privatisation of American police and U.S. armed forces. Most people out there have actually heard of companies like Blackwater (Xe).
The final step after privatisation is of course to hire immigrants as H1B workers and pay ’em chump change. After all, once your police force is private, the corporation can hire whomever they like — U.S. citizens cost too much, as in all other areas of life.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@Dennis SGMM: yeah, it’s called “Exposing Lefty Loons. com”
FormerSwingVoter
Oh, for the love of…
Even if he is going to use the final version of the Simpson-Bowles plan, it’s nowhere near as bad as people keep hallucinating. We’re talking about using a different measure of inflation to adjust payments upwards over time (a smaller one, admittedly), and bumping the retirement age by a year forty years from now.
And this is assuming that “using Simpson-Bowles as a framework” would indicate that he’s keeping the Social Security changes they recommended. He could very well use the tax-code overhaul without touching entitlement programs and make a significant dent in our debt.
Dennis SGMM
@Yutsano:
Thank you! I don’t even agree with myself all the time. I’m a sixty-two-year-old, long-haired, Berkeley educated Liberal so I’m constantly yo-yoing between “Give peace a chance” and “Hey you kids, get off of my lawn!”
mclaren
@Brachiator:
…the last betrayal of liberalism, which happened about five minutes ago. The Democratic party has been energetically and industriously betraying liberalism since about 1975.
To paraphrase Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction:
“Corporatism, motherfucker! Do you grasp it?”
mclaren
@FormerSwingVoter:
Correct. It’s worse.
Simpson-Bowles includes (wait for it…) more tax cuts for the rich. As Paul Krugman pointed out, the short version of Simpson-Bowles is “We need to cut every janitor’s and schoolteacher’s social security benefits because rich corporate lawyers are living longer.”
Gee. “No one could have predicted…” Hoocoodanode?
Kenneth
@mclaren:
Thank Christ there’s somebody else on here who gets it.
After Bush/Cheney/Obama this country is fucked BEYOND REPAIR time to consider expatriating to Europe.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@Mike mKay (Team America):
.
.
oh, did I hurt your fee fees? good.
.
.
Brachiator
@mclaren:
Yawn.
Let’s see now. The corporate elite hire illegal immigrants and others from the underclass, arm them, underpay them, and then expect them to complacently do their bidding.
And what, they will willingly follow orders coming from President Palin?
Shit, I hope something this dumbass is the oligarchs’ secret plan to take over America.
Joseph Nobles
@Mike Kay (Team America): 9/11 Truth is not an exclusively left conspiracy theory. I can actually tell you that after eight years of debunking them, I’ve found that most 9/11 Truth leaders are from the right side of the aisle.
JenJen
@mclaren: Are you always so condescending and patronizing when people question you? Do you automatically assume that just because another doesn’t believe it will go the way you think it will, that automatically makes the other person ill-informed, if not downright ignorant (ie, never heard of Blackwater/Xe?) If I told you I was just as alarmed as you are at these developments over the years, but reached a different conclusion than you about the efficacy of “the plan,” would it be impossible for us to continue the conversation?
Do you have difficulty having interactions IRL, because of this tendency? Have you ever considered the possibility that your arguments might be more persuasive if you didn’t just automatically put possibly like-minded people off with your attitude and argumentation style?
I never argued that efforts to privatize long-public institutions is an ongoing problem. Rather, I took issue with your fully-grown belief that each of these institutions will indeed be privatized and nobody will even blink.
Mike Kay (Team America)
Charlie Sheen AND Rosie O’Donnell say 9/11 was an inside job.
Must be true if such prominent people, with insider contacts, come forward with such a definitive statements.
scarshapedstar
@Joseph Nobles:
No kiddin’. Is Alex Jones a liberal now?
FormerSwingVoter
@mclaren:
I’ll take Blatant Lies for $200, Alex!
That was from the original framework in a powerpoint slide. The actual final plan marks dividends, capital gains, and carried interest as income, resulting in a higher tax rate for the top quintile (and especially the top 1%) than the existing tax code:
http://taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?Docid=2855
Effective federal tax rates for the bottom 20% increase by 0.1%. For the middle groups (20%-80%) it’s 1.0%. For the top 20% it’ll go up 3.0%. For the top 1%: an increase of 5.5%. And the top 0.1%: an increase of 7.9%.
So yeah. If you want to complain about the Social Security changes, go right ahead. But the plan would actually result in a far more progressive tax code than current law.
Mike Kay (Team America)
@scarshapedstar: he’s a libertarian who hates obama and is friends with Kuchinich. kinda fits the profile of a firebagger.
Joseph Nobles
@Mike Kay (Team America): I didn’t say it was exclusively a right wing conspiracy theory, either. Get your facts straight and stop your idiotic games.
D-Chance.
If Team Obama does this, he will be a one-termer, and beyond that Democrats will not hold the Presidency again in my lifetime, barring President Palin accidentally nuking Missouri.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and the Republicans were going to be out in the wilderness and the Democrats were going to hold a congressional majority and the presidency for the next generation, if not longer, as of the 2008 elections, too…
This is why political boards are hilarious browsing fare. The melodrama, the “OMG, this is the end!” hysteria, is the best free entertainment to be had.
Bob Loblaw
@Mike Kay (Team America):
That’s, um, how do I put this delicately, a fucking lie. And not a very good one.
And, I would presume, rather surprising news to the people of the Gulf.
In the real world, rather than the one Mike Kay lives (and howls at the moon) in, the administration reversed its earlier decision to open drilling rights along the Florida gulf coast and the Atlantic shelf. But I’m sure in Mike’s world the original decision was also brilliant and upright and in no way reckless and cynical and short-sighted. Certainly no contradictions were heightened by the BP episode…
@Hawes:
HAMP. That was rather blatant, though people don’t like to talk about it. I’m not sure why people demand a purely black and white view of things, though. Most times the administration looks upon the middle and lower classes with favor, sometimes they ream them up the ass. It all depends on the relevant financial and legislative factors in the moment.
Bob Loblaw
Progressing further through the thread, I see it’s more classic Balloon Juice.
This site has three states of being: anger, panic, and pet blogging. Apparently tonight is a panic night.
So, no, Obama isn’t out to get social security. But yes, he’ll be total BFFs with Mitch McConnell until the GOP primaries. Because it’s “worked” so far, and you’re only as good as the latest victory in politics. And elections do have consequences.
It will be odious though.
oondioline
I’m afraid John just lost the black vote for Obama in 2012 with this post.
J. Michael Neal
@mclaren:
I don’t think you’re sexy.
Cain
@Just Some Fuckhead:
And they would still vote for her after she did it!
cain
Yutsano
@Cain: It’s funny cause it’s true!
BTW are you still in India or back home in the Northwest?
Martin Gifford
John Cole wrote:
You mean another disaster on top of:
Torture.
People dying from lack of health insurance.
Insane military expenditure.
Disgraceful public discourse.
Shocking level of unemployment.
Systemic political corruption.
Wanton ignorance (i.e. poor education).
Two wars.
Bombing raids with high “collateral damage”.
Cruel prisons.
The death penalty.
Abuse of secrecy.
Spying on Americans in America.
Cover-up of previous administration high crimes.
High murder rates.
Huge social injustice.
World’s biggest pollution rates.
Privatised military.
Angry Black Lady
@oondioline: I’m afraid you’ve proven yet again that you’re a twatwaffle with this comment.
mclaren
@JenJen:
Pot, meet kettle. By implying that my accurate description of the ongoing privatization of police/fire/military in America is some kind of (giggle, giggle) conspiracy theory (snicker, snicker, tee hee!), you started the condescension.
As a general rule of thumb, JenJen, when people respond reasonably to arguments, I try to respond reasonably in turn. When people play the “you’re crayyyyyyyyyyzeeeee” card or the “conspiracy theory” smear, they don’t get much leeway from me. People like that are reaching out an arm to bitch-slap me, so when they draw back a bleeding stump, they can’t reasonably protest.
Surely you mean you never argued that privatization isn’t a problem. You want to watch your double negatives. Like the subjunctive, these can prove tricky. Wouldn’t it be much simpler for you simply to say “I agree with you that privatization of police/military in America is an ongoing problem”?
Oh, but then you’d have to admit I’m correct. Unacceptable, obviously, so you have to find some convoluted way to saying the same thing so we don’t…actually…notice…you’re admitting I’m right.
Now you’ve really put your foot in it, because the U.S. military has been massively privatized and nobody has even blinked. As I noted earlier, Afghanistan contractors outnumber [U.S.] troops and this trend continues to accelerate. Moreover, this military privatization is accelerating both in Afghanistan and Iraq. If you draw a graph, you’ll see that at some point in the foreseeable future, the U.S. army will have essentially no troops, and will consist entirely of mercs.
See Iraq withdrawal? Obama and Clinton expanding U.S. paramilitary forces in Iraq.
Meanwhile, police in America are increasingly becoming paramilitary and privatized. The privatization of local police has not accelerated to the extent that privatization of the U.S. military has, primarily because the American military can be privatized by a single executive order, whereas local police forces must be privatized in a patchwork fashion one city or county at a time. However, this is now occurring apace as state and municipal deficits grow ever worse and this second Great Depression lingers and more and more people lose their jobs. The tax base of cities and towns erodes, forcing municipalities to disband their police forces and hire outside private contractors to act as police, in many cases paying the private security contractors by asset forfeiture. This converts police into private brigands. A private rent-a-cop with full police powers and the ability to seize your assets via asset forfeiture is in reality nothing but a burglar with a badge and the legal right to steal your TV.
So the evidence overwhelmingly shows that both the U.S. military and local police have indeed been progressively privatized, and in fact no one has even blinked.
The privatization is ongoing. When it’s complete, there will be few or no local cops left in America, and few or no actual U.S. troops left in America’s army. It’ll be all rent-a-cops and mercs. This has happened before, many many times. Did you ever read your history? Does the term “Hessians” come to mind? German mercenaries employed by King George against the American colonials? In Rome, the Gauls served as mercenaries in the Roman army, and by the time Rome fell, their armies were entirely composed of mercenaries, with no Roman citizens left fighting for Rome. This is the familiar path of all empires. The citizens get tired of governing themselves and let an emperor take away the burden of decision-making; the citizens gets tired of fighting and dying for the empire and they hire mercs instead. Eventually, the mercs realize they’re the real power, and they overthrow the emperor and install themselves as rulers.
mclaren
@Martin Gifford:
To add to your list:
America has 90% of the world’s serial killers.
America has an army in which 1/3 of the women report having been raped by our own troops.
America has the highest teen suicide rate in the world.
America has the highest infant mortality rate of any first-world nation.
America has the highest rate of child malnutrition of any developed country (1 out of 4 chlidren malnourished)
America has the highest rate of STDs and teen pregnancies among any industrialized nation
Life expectancy for the bottom 80% of the American population is the lowest of any advanced industrial democracy, outside of Russia (and we’re closing in fast).
America has the largest proportion of its own citizens in prison of any country in the world, by far.
America enforces the death penalty for children, the only industrialized country in the world to do so. Not even Liberia is this barbarous.
America uses white phosphorous munitions (a compound which sticks to victims’ skins and burns through their bones), a violation of international agreements against war crimes. (The U.S. army used white phosphorous at Fallujah.)
America uses depleted uranium munitions, resulting in higher cancer rates in Iraqis at Fallujah than in Japanese after the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings
America kidnaps its own citizens and hurls them into dungeons forever without charges or a trial
America keeps its own citizens in solitary confinement 23 hours a day without even alleging they have committed a crime
America steals its citizens’ property without even alleging a crime (a process known as “asset forfeiture”)
America now refuses to permit its own citizens to leave the country without prior government permission, something previously only seen in the Soviet Union and the Third Reich and dictatorships like Burma and North Korea.
amk
@mclaren: Read them all from wikileaks, didntja ?
All countries have the same problems, only the degree varies. So don’t think of emigrating soon.
Pat
Well John, I’m glad you are finally seeing the light. As a life long Democrat myself, I cannot see myself voting for a Democratic (?) president who is, time after time, embracing GOP policies.
My Independence day appears to be fast approaching and will finally arrive on election day 2012.
Let the best candidate win! That is, if there are any to be found!
John S.
Ah, another thread that after being hijacked by the pearl-clutching firebaggers devolves into:
Sanders/Kucinich 2012!
That will show the bastards.
JPL
Rove must be laughing. Both the Washington Post and Politico print unsourced articles to work up the left. The Senator fixed the food bill and repealed DADT which should mean a few days of positive news for the President but instead everyone will be talking about unsourced rumors.
cat48
John, This can be found at HuffHoBagger, too. You can read every Obama FAIL Editorial that Kuttner has ever written since the Inauguration there and see how accurate they were.
When your finished with those, you can buy his book that came out Spring 2010, “Presidency in Peril” which will explain how Obama has failed you & there is no hope. This was published in the SPRING 2010. Propoganda that firebaggers love. DADT was a diversion obviously. He was hold up in the WH all weekend destroying SocSec, just as FDL, HuffHo, baggers predicted.
This is more than disappointing from this blog!
Tattoosydney
@Pat:
You so need to read this…
ETA: Did Obama steal your penis?
Tattoosydney
@Pat:
You really need to read this.
matoko_chan
nah.
it is my hypothesis that the TP/GOP can never win a general election again. 2012 is their last chance and as we have seen, they dont have a candidate that can beat O.
three reasons.
1. the demographic timer.
2. Salam-Douthat stratification on cognitive ability
the conservative elite realize this is a problem– there were a spate of articles about top students fleeing the GOP like scalded cats– all voted dem in the midterms, and of course all the handwringing over the fact that only 6% of scientists are republican. one must be SMART to be a scientist or an intellectual elite. there is also the widening culture gap. the GOP only has business class elites anymore– intellectual and cultural elites have left the building.
3. HCR– in 1993 Kristol wrote a memo saying that if HCR passed it would be the eventual doom of the GOP, leading to permanent defeat.
that hasnt changed.
we need to fight like hell though, the republicans have enjoyed a half century of dominion.
and it is the least among us that will save us.
blacks, browns, women, children, geeks, scientists, hindus, muslims, jews, filmakers, musicians, college profs, artists…..in short, the grouped minorities of America….everyone that is not a white judeoxian teabagger or teabagger sympathizer.
we shall overcome.
matoko_chan
@mclaren:
wow…..that is the exact plot of one of my favorite movies, Tokyo Gore Police.
TGP is one of the greatest gorror movies ever made, and also the name of one of my arena teams.
chopper
@Ann B. Nonymous:
so far it seems to be working amazingly well.
Ronbo
BJC-
You attack FDL because *what?* reasonable individuals recognize that continuing to kick highly valued, expensively trained and mission critical Lesbian and Gays out – even though they will reverse their policy – by law?!?
Attacking FDL for this is as absurd as your support of continuing the multiple wars even though we know they will fail, will cost us trillions of dollars (that we don’t have) and the continuation will erode our influence.
What is the point of continuing a policy that is: no longer the law, immoral, expensive, wasteful, harmful and repugnant to human rights? Oh, I forgot, you are disgusted by LGBT Americans and YOUR hate is more important than their rights.
BJC – you are repugnant in every aspect from your ignorance to your hate to your foolish attacks on the left. With you and Obama chasing foolish Republican dreams, we don’t need court jesters. The little bells on your hat, give you away.
JenJen
@mclaren:
Yes, of course that’s what I meant. And stop calling me Shirley.
Ronbo
@matoko_chan: If the morman is giving Obama a run for his money, it takes no imagination to see that Obama is cooked.
Don’t give up on your dreams of a Republican takeover. The black Ronald Reagan has already successfully managed GWB’s third term. You aren’t dreaming, the nightmare is already clearly unfolding before our eyes. Maybe you have not noticed; but, the black Ronald Reagan has maintained 98% of the Bush Administration’s agenda.
Oh, I admit – that 2% change. Wow! Yipee.
Ronbo
@FormerSwingVoter: At first, I also thought that it isn’t a big deal to advance the retirement age. Then I thought about being a copier repairman at age 68. Working on my knees (already painful at age 32). And bricklayers, walking up ramps with 80 lbs of brick on their backs at age 66. And my frail mother being forced to clean the hotel rooms with her artificial hip and constant pain from lupus. Yes, forcing them to work longer when they are weakest just isn’t human. It’s repugant.
Push this meme – just so the very wealthy don’t have to pay taxes on their income over $110,000 – and you’ll see the monster in the mirror.
The best answer is to lift the payment cap. If you can’t live comfortably paying 7% on your income over $110,000 – fire the butler, the maid or the driver. Your priorities are screwed up.
Bernard
and Obama will care? about what? only bipartisan fellowship is allowed in the Obama Government.
Just the way it works. rumor or not, Obama will help the Republicans gut Social Security because that’s where the money is. or was. lol
Brian J
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I sent an e-mail to a progressive economist who said he’s heard that the White House might be trying to set up a deal. His words: “What I can tell you is that the top people in the administration are definitely considering putting forward a deal on SS, which would almost certainly involve substantial cuts.” He says he guesses Simpson-Bowles is a good starting point (not as in he thinks it’s a good plan, just that it might represent what the Obama administration would move forward from), although he said while it’s appropriate to be concerned, nothing is final, and he really doesn’t know the level of detail being discussed.
Me? I know Obama isn’t the liberal that some, including me, want him to be on every issue. I know he unfortunately brings the Harvard Law Review to a knife fight, as someone said, far too often. I know he often seems like a bad negotiator on certain issues. But I have a hard time believing, based on his past statements, that he’s willing to cave in on Social Security like this. I just don’t see the benefit, from either a policy end or a political end. It’s one thing if there are some minor benefit cuts to go along with some minor tax increases–basically, Diamond-Orszag instead of Simpson-Bowles. But if there are truly substantial cuts, that’s a different story.
I’m willing to defend him in a lot of ways, even if I don’t always like what he’s doing. I might not be crazy about the tax deal, but I don’t think it was a violation of core Democratic principles. However, dealing away Social Security would be. Like I said, benefit cuts aren’t by themselves the end of the world if they aren’t massive. It’s only one of two options–the other being raising taxes–but something massive is out of the question. If he does that–and I stress “if” here–he deserves to lose.
Brian J
@Lolis:
From your mouth to, well, someone’s (God’s) ears.
Brian J
@And Another Thing…:
“Batshit crazy” is an understatement. I’m about as big of an Obama defender as you will find, but if he does something that is unacceptable when it comes to Social Security, I’d almost certainly work to defeat him in a primary.
I don’t think it will come to this, however.
Brian J
@Mike Kay (Team America):
I really, really hope you are right.
kc
@Hawes:
what exactly has he ever done to suggest he didn’t have the interest of working people closest to his heart?
You mean besides his tax compromise, which will result in working people earning 20K or less a year paying MORE, and besides his shiny new health care “reform” bill, which will force working people to buy insurance from private companies?
Brian J
@WyldPirate:
As Kevin Drum pointed out, people who are so concerned about tax rates for the rich, like Grover Norquist, don’t appear to care about rates for everyone else. So yes, I’d say it’s very possible the rates go up, if not absolutely likely.
Brian J
@Mnemosyne:
Wow. Thanks for that. I’ve been so consumed with other stuff in the past few weeks that I simply wasn’t aware of that distinction. I got lost in the flurry of news that has been appearing.
molosky
@kc:
“his tax compromise, which will result in working people earning 20K or less a year paying MORE”
Wow! More than the full expiration?
“will force working people to buy insurance from private companies”
You’re kidding right? Do some research into this topic.
Brian J
@jl:
What regressive tax reforms are supposedly being talked about?
A Humble Lurker
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Brian J
@Mike Kay (Team America):
Me? I’ll be very happy and then start to plan for 2012. I’ll feel slightly embarrassed I doubted Obama and far more embarrassed I reacted with the same sort of breathless hysteria that I criticize others for.
I’d feel less embarrassed and happier if there was some sort of call for infrastructure investment or something similar. I’m going on record and predicting that there will be some such call–and yes, I realize how insane that sounds.
molosky
So far Obama has not done anything completely stupid. Completely stupid means changing the status quo POLITICALLY for the worse when he has veto power (tax bill did not do this as a whole, FYI). The biggest potential exception to this might have been that if the stimulus was capped at 700 bil (due to Nelson and co), it could have still passed with a larger stimulative component and ditching the tax cuts and had the same political effect. That might have been a mistake — but it was not stupid.
Obama needs to give the impression he is “doing something about the deficit.” He knows this. He also needs to give the impression he is “protecting social security.” He knows this too.
So far he has not shown the degree of stupidity necessary to sacrifice the latter for the former.
FlipYrWhig
This IS just like that rumor about how there would soon be a war with Iran, and all the top brass was planning it, and it’s only a matter of time, and it will be a catastrophic disaster. Calm the fuck down. If you’re actually worried about it, contact your Congresspeople and the WH and vent at them.
Brian J
@Kenneth:
In fairness to him, he never said that things were rosy for the average worker. What he did say, or at least imply, was that economic indicators were getting better, which they are.
The economy has gotten better over the last two years, but it’s hardly good, and nobody denies that.
Brian J
@FormerSwingVoter:
In other words, realize that Simpson and Bowle’s plan is different from the actual deficit commission’s recommendation?
Brian J
@cat48:
I don’t read Kuttner often, primarily for the reasons you imply, but I do know of his personality and outlook. I’m trying to keep that in the back of my mind until I hear more.
Brian J
@matoko_chan:
Demographics are on our side, so despite any sort-term losses, the gains will be considerable if we can get our shit together when it comes to campaigning and don’t have something like a crappy economy working against us. But at the same time, events can realign politics in ways that aren’t predictable, and if there was ever something that might seriously fuck the Democrats for a few elections, it would be blowing a hole in Social Security.
If nothing else, there’s got to be a few people in the White House that realize this, even if they are in the minority. That’s why, as worried as I might be, I don’t imagine Obama doing this.
Tim H
DeLong
Looks like Cole’s fears are well-founded.
A L
Social security is going to be gutted. The writing was on the wall for over a decade now and the inability to deal with this reality is disconcerting but not unexpected.
You all need to wake up and understand that this is what the political establishment wants. That includes Obama and 90% of the Democrats AT LEAST.
Brian J
@Tim H:
I still have a hard time believing that this is going to happen. It’s one thing if someone like Kuttner is relaying a rumor, but DeLong has supposedly been in regular contact with the administration, even as he’s been outside of it. I’m not sure what this is a test balloon for, but it doesn’t seem like a serious proposal.
Even if you think that he’s merely softening the ground so that when he introduces such a proposal, it doesn’t seem as bad, it doesn’t make sense. There’s no way that this gets easier with time.
JenJen
@Mnemosyne: Excellent post that should be front-paged. Thanks for this.
Tim H
@Brian J:
Whatever. There’s not much reason at this point for the underlings to be floating these kind of trial balloons unless the top guy is very interested in them. Whoever the voice of reason is in the WH better yell a little louder.
DMM
@Brian J:
Brian,
What do you consider core democratic principles?
Brian J
@Tim H:
If there was ever a time for my fakeout-like theories to be right, now is it. I have to believe this is just a rouse of some type, or the person leaking is very, very wrong.
@DMM:
Social Security is one of them. Being pro-choice is another. That is why I’d be furious if he compromised in some big way, as if he gave away the farm. The tax cut deal, as frustrating as it was, was a policy reversal. It wasn’t like he signed into law massive abortion restrictions or something.
Like I said, I am about as big a defender of Obama as you will find. But if he sells out like Kuttner says he will–if he makes not some minor benefit changes in addition to some tax increases, but huge cuts in benefits–I’ll be finished. I don’t think he’s dunb enough to do this, so I am trying not to freak out.
Rob L
It is fascinating to me watching my fellow Democrats so desparately wanting to believe that the President is something other than what he is, a very conservative Democrat.
I too had hope at first, but then came the bailout and white wash of the great Recession, the appointment of the same greedsters as before to run all things federally fiscal, the total abandonment of home owners in trouble, the department of justice more interested in chasing whistleblowers than in cleaning house or putting in jail any of the Bush monsters, the coverup of the gulf oil disaster, the refusal to deal with the gigantic monopolies destroying America’s fiscal health or a tax code wildly skewed to favor the rich, the continuation of doing business with the most monsterous of businesses like Blackwater, the near complete surrender to big pharma and insurance companies on the health care bill (not to mention the backroom deals that he cut), and on and on and on.
Yes, this president isn’t George Bush, but he isn’t just compromising with the radical right because he has to; he believes exactly in what he is doing. The stacking of the cat food commission with conservatives and right wingers wasn’t an accident. And yes, the president is going to screw us, the average middle class American, again and tell us he was doing it for our own good. The only question is whether you continue to believe the lies.
Rob Last
Again and again in the postings here I see that the defenders of the Obama faith tell us that we should trust him and all will be well. Yes, he’s not George Bush, but your hope that comparing him against a bunch of nut cases makes his policies look better just doesn’t hold water.
Unfortunately the last 2 years gives the rest of us plenty to measure the President by, and he comes up seriously wanting. Not only is he not FDR, but his conservative agenda is destroying what’s left of middle class America and it is completely obvious. And throwing a few half inflated life vests to those that are drowning, i.e. repealing DADT and passing a watered down healthcare offering, amounts to almost nothing.
So sad to burst your bubble, but this guy operates to the right of Bill Clinton and doesn’t care about progressives/liberals at all, except to offer us ‘happy talk’ speeches so that we’ll vote for him again in 2012. I, for one, refuse to be fooled again.
Matt
@Rob Last:
Agreed. Obama may not be loading the gun, but he’s clearly adjusting the gunsights on SS. First the Obama sponsored Catfood Commish, then Santa’s payroll tax “holiday” (that will never end), next, “tax reform” and so forth. It’s a longer term campaign, get the picture? “Regime” leftists penchant for blowing up tiny, one-off reform crumbs as if they were “historic victories for our side” provides convenient cover for obscuring that picture, where 90% of “reform” is in fact deeply reactionary in nature.
So far, I’ve seen the most powerful anti-Obama response on the left so for on this issue. So much so that he had to call in Billy and his back alley journalistic lynch mob to help the POTUS out.
My favorite is the NYT’s Charles Blow, who accidentally conceded that:
– the “far left” consists of 20% of the voting population of the U.S., and
– defense of Social Security is a prime plank in the platform of this same “far left”
As a bona fide “far leftist” by U.S. standards – i.e., socialist, Marxist – I’ll take those! Bring on the revolution!
Nathanael
“barring President Palin accidentally nuking Missouri.”
Don’t underestimate the likelihood of that. I am expectig something similarly deranged.