For reasons that remain a mystery (masochism, maybe), I continue to check in on Hot Air to watch Captain Ed tap dance on his former integrity, and came across this gem:
There are two problems here, one short-term and one long-term. The national debt will rise above the limit increased last year by Democrats at the end of their spending spree in short order, and the question of defaulting on debt service becomes real and could create a lot of economic damage.
Yeah. It was the Democratic spending spree that rocketed up the national debt:
I’m sure everyone recalls how Hot Air was at the front of trying to make sure the Bush tax cuts were ended so that the national debt could be addressed. And remember how the Hot Air staff demanded that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq be paid for? LOL.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Shhh! You are substituting reality for their surreality. Keep this up and Ed might cry.
You wouldn’t want that, would you? ;)
MikeJ
You should really try to be more civil. Citing facts is exactly like calling him a motherfucker.
General Stuck
This video clip of Rep Weiner and Wasserman Schultz on Face the Nation this past Sunday was a thing of beauty, if we could clone these two dems for all media events, life would be must easier for dems in general.
how to demolish a wingnut on national teevee by revealing their hypocritical bullshit on economic matters.
Ash Can
Ed and his audience have to build their own reality because facing facts would make them crack up. Poor things.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
“You know, (John), Reagan proved deficits don’t matter“
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@General Stuck:
Debbie Wasserman Schultz is one of the finest Democrats out there. The way she transitioned from Hillary Clinton supporter to Obama supporter after the 2008 primaries was spectacular. Mark Green, too. If I had to choose two Democrats to present the Democratic argument in any debate it’d probably be these two.
dmsilev
Hell, you don’t have to go back so far as last month to find a staggering example of GOP hypocrisy on the subject of deficit reduction. Yesterday will work just as well (Politico link, the gist of which is that the GOP has decided that their attempt to repeal the deficit-reducing health care reform bill doesn’t count towards increasing the deficit. Because, shut up, that’s why).
dms
Silver Owl
Conservatives, especially the men, are never ever ever wrong on anything. They are always totally awesome on everything.
Perfect creatures in everyone and about everything. All problems are everyone’s else fault. Never is the conservative man responsible for anything but the uber good stuff.
Comrade Javamanphil
Tax cuts always increase revenue. Sheesh. Every moran knows that.
Uloborus
@MikeJ:
It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
jrg
The best way to solve a problem is to prevent taking responsibility for it. That’s just common sense from the heartland.
I’d add that if Obama leaves office after a second term with a balanced budget, principled conservatives like Ed will love him for it – they will not criticize him for cutting services or raising taxes, nor will they spread deranged seekretmusimvincefostershowmethebirthcertificateblowjob bullshit.
DBrown
It worked for Lee! (see past thread)
cleek
that’s a hell of an epistemic closure they’ve got going on there. they have a nearly-completely separate reality! now if they could find a way to seal it off completely – so that not only could no information get in (which they’ve almost achieved) , but that no information could get out – the rest of us could live in peace.
Bill E Pilgrim
John Cole:
Robert Reich:
The Big Lie.
If the Democrats would actually say this, and you know, forcefully, and better yet also do it in the style that conservatives have mastered, repeated day and night from a million little megaphones, then they, and we, might have a chance of having it filter into the conversation at least somewhat.
The Wingnuts have used this trick to great effect of having one, concise talking point be repeated so it’s coming at the average consumer from seemingly all directions, and thus seems true. Of course it’s really all one direction, but in a trick worthy of “Flatland”, it’s made to seem as if it came from inside the listener’s own brain.
slag
That’s a good graphic.
Tom65
@Bill E Pilgrim: SOSHULISIM!
rinse, repeat, etc.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Tom65: Exactly. And the amount that the general public hears “Soçialism!” when these claims are made, they need to hear just as many times and coming from as many quarters, “Oh, bullshit!”.
If anyone really thinks that things will change for the better before that happens, dream on. Of course, things will most likely just keep getting worse, but just saying.
DJShay
More GOP asshattery. They are now for Deem and Pass
And I’m sure the media will hold their feet to the fire over this. Dumbasses.
cleek
@DJShay:
nice!
check out how AmSpec fumed at the prospect of D&P:
the author is a House member from Michigan.
The Grand Panjandrum
When Ed and the rest of the Palin panty sniffers make paying for Medicare Part D a top priority I’ll take them serious. Until then, Ed who?
gnomedad
@General Stuck:
At the CBS site, there’s a clip titled “Rep. Issa Set to Save Americans Money.” Thanks, liberal media!
DJShay
@cleek: It’s just unreal to me that the GOP has the balls to do this. I think that’s why they get so much more favorable coverage in the media. It may be hypocritical, but they won’t back down from it. Ever. The media sees this as the embodiment of the quintessential American. The party of “John Wayne” so to speak.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@DJShay:
They don’t have the balls to do anything, stupid people don’t need balls when a non-functioning brain will do quite nicely. John Wayne my ass, more like John Wilkes Booth.
Maybe even John Wayne Gacy.
Mnemosyne
@cleek:
I’m hearing a bit of a dogwhistle in there, I think. I suspect it’s not a coincidence that I first read it as Cider House Rules and wondered, “Wait, what does this have to do with abortion?”
azlib
Dick Cheney was right when he said deficits do not matter. The Dems should have taken him at his word. The Republicans are getting away convincing people that deficits are only created by spending and not by reducing revenues.
Laughingriver
Why these clowns continue to think that we’re going to default when we could easily raise the tax rates to the 50%-60% range for the top 10% and be in surpluses is beyond me.
Heck if we did that, in 10 years the entire debt to the public would be paid off, how about a 10 year expiring tax increase to eliminate our deficit and debt, bet you never hear that from Andrew Sullivan when he is getting all serious about nations fiscal problems eh?
feebog
It is going to be a wild and bumpy ride for sure. One thing that may get accomplished is to start paring down the military budget. There may be some bi-partisan support to eliminate some programs and close a few overseas bases.
cleek
@feebog:
i doubt it
Woodrowfan
there’s a reason why they call him ‘Special Ed.”
Nellcote
@feebog:
linky
Kmeyer the lurker
We’re so totally disfucntional, we need to coin a phrase that is the opposite of Occam’s razor. Here’s what I mean: we have a problem, the deficit, that could be remedied in short order by fixing another problem, which is our unconscionably low top margin tax rates on high earners. Easy fix, right? Not in America. Turns out that here, that’s the one thing we absolutely cannot do. Instead, we call up ALAN FUCKING SIMPSON and say “hey, can you come up with a way to reduce the deficit?” He, being ALAN FUCKING SIMPSON says “Sure, let’s start by reducing the top marginal tax rate by a third and making all the people who are really struggling eat shit to pay for it!”
The opposite of Occam’s razor.
That CBS poll was a thing of wonder, though. Seems to me that in all national polls, there are about 25% of Americans who do not live in reality. The hard core Bush dead-enders, the UFO/lizard people/young earth/vampire believers (I believe this blog refers to them as ‘people who voted for Alan Keyes in Illinois’). Yet this poll had 81% supporting the correct solutions to our deficit problem, and only 7% voting for the abjectly insane solutions. This poll cracked the tin-hat people! We got a quarter of them, and less than a third went for the reliably insane ideas! Of course, our government will go for the insanity because …. it’s not our government any more.
Here’s how America died. We did it not for any noble or good reason, or in defense of any altruistic cause. We did it because we decided the most important thing to do was to make people who are already very well off even richer.
Sorry for the long rant. Back to lurking.