Here’s another timing question that Steve Benen missed. Here’s Jim DeMint just a few months ago:
“I’m doing the job South Carolinians elected me to do, which is to review each bill carefully before it is passed, not after,” DeMint told McClatchy. “Only in Washington is it a radical idea to read a bill and know how much it costs before we agree to pass it. I’m not going to sit by quietly while big spenders try to secretly ram through bills that increase the debt and expand the size of government.”
DeMint’s aides said he’s not out to block all legislation and is focused on spending measures.
How on earth could DeMint and Pence offer commentary on the Obama budget already. Have they read the bill? Have they read the entire plan they are offering? Shouldn’t they “READ THE BILL” first?
Yutsano
Waitaminute…there is no bill yet. A proposed budget has to be brought up in the House, then they start tearing it apart, but AFAIK that hasn’t even happened yet. But hey, let DeMint rave like an idiot. He’ll still get re-elected easily.
General Stuck
In fairness to Demint et al, a one trillion dollar Obama plan to cut spending is not the same one trillion dollar republican plan to cut spending.
For instance, Obama didn’t unfund his HCR law. That is all you need to know about what is bouncing around the wingnut brain these days.
Violet
Only Democrats are required to read bills in their entirety. Republicans don’t have to do such things.
hildebrand
It simply doesn’t matter what the issue might be – read the bill, don’t read the bill, deficits matter, deficits don’t matter, etc, etc – whatever Obama says these charlatans say the exact opposite.
Governing is easy when all you have to do is pretend to be John Cleese in the argument clinic sketch.
Don
Well he only said read it before passing it. If he’s decided to just not pass it for some other reason – someone committing the crime of President-ing while Democrat, for example – he doesn’t have to read it first!
Elvis Elvisberg
Eh, it was a talking point that riled up some morans, so it served its purpose.
Next month, it’ll be that introducing any bill on Friday is an act of bad faith because it’s burying the news so the people can’t evaluate it, so every bill should be introduced on Mondays. Rush & Fox will say it every day, so eventually the MSM will too.
Then a few months later it’ll be that introducing bills on Mondays, when the schedule for the week is already set, is a dastardly act of perfidy. Rush & Fox will say it every day, so eventually the MSM will too.
I mean, for shit’s sake, these people openly said before the 2004 election, “deficits don’t matter.” And every single person who today staples tea to their hats and claims to be outraged about the porkulus marched off to the ballot box to vote for Bush & keep the western world free from gay marriage. Cheney said “deficits don’t matter,” but he may as well have said “facts don’t matter.”
Citizen_X
Libtards. Republicans don’t need to “read” bills to compare them. They know what’s in there:
DEM BILL:
1000 pages of legalese that they claim is necessary for actual, constitutional law, when actually all the words are there to hide the SOSHULIZM.
REPUB BILL:
1. KUT TAXXES!
2. BUY MOAR BOMS!
3. DROP MOAR BOMS!
You guys would know this stuff if you weren’t so anti-American.
Ash Can
Jim DeMint is being hypocritical? Egad! Say it ain’t so!
Mark S.
Benen:
It’s such a truism I can’t summon the energy for one of the usual snarky responses.
Villago Delenda Est
“The President is near”
Do I really need to say anything else to capture DeMented’s problem with Obama? Seriously?
General Stuck
@Elvis Elvisberg:
When Dick Cheney and the other wingnuts said, “deficits don’t matter”. What they meant was, we are going to borrow a shitload of money and have a war in Iraq, and pass wingnut welfare bills out the yazoo, and pay for none of it and explode the budget, so that the libtards will not be able to pass laws giving poor people free stuff, and let them eat cake and die in the emergency room waiting room.
When you think of it, it is something like diabolical genius of touching all the wishlist wingnut bases for a home run. Only problem is, an uppity negro said fuck it, and did all those libtard commie things anyway. They are not mad over the deficit, they are mad that Obama called their bluff and ruined their master plan. And now HCR must die, because people getting health care security will surely be good for democrats, never mind that whole saving lives thingy. That is fer soshulists and ACORN stooges.
piratedan
@hildebrand: THIS, tyvm. I’ve stopped listening to what Repubs say, I prefer to sit back and watch what they do. Since they’ve been in charge in the House, what have we seen so far? Culture War, Son of Culture War and the Return of Son of the Culture War. What’s up next? More Culture War with a side of Culture War.
These guys are quickly parleying themselves into the party of Richard Dreyfuss’ character out of the movie The American President.
meh
I’m sure the administration gave the GOP advanced copies of the budget.
SteveinSC
Well you have to give Jim a little more time to evaluate the budget by converting Yankee dollars into Confederate money. Now if you take 1.1 Trillion yankee dollars and convert that by multiplying…oh, dear how many Confederate dollars to a penny? It’s just making his head hurt.
Villago Delenda Est
@meh:
In the naive hope that it would provide a starting place for a dialog on the budget.
Why can’t they get it through their thick heads over there in the WH that the Rethugs will oppose ANYTHING Obama does, that they’ve publically stated that it is their intention to cause him to fail?
It’s Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the football. Again.
Fuck U II: The Duckening
Wait, should the deck chairs go over here by the pool, or over there by the string quartet?
JGabriel
Jim DeMint:
Really? ‘Cause I could have sworn that was exactly what DeMint did for the eight looong years of the Bush administration.
.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@SteveinSC: There is no conversion between Confederate and Yankee dollars because no black man should be handling money.
Nick
@Villago Delenda Est:
Well if that’s true, then the country is ungovernable.
Look, if you want to actually govern the country, you’re going to have at least appear to be reaching out to the other sides. I mean what else do you want, a civil war?
Villago Delenda Est
@SteveinSC:
Well, I’d check into a gastritis treatment for your calculator, then.
A friend of mine, a few years older than me, amazes the kids nowadays by figuring percentages in his head, without need of paper, pencil, or a calculator!
Midnight Marauder
I thought this article was rather telling in the difference it highlighted:
One Month In: Comparing Boehner’s Record As Speaker With Pelosi’s
But my favorite sentence is this one, because it so succinctly captures the perpetual parade of failure that is the Republican Party:
Clowns.
frosty
@hildebrand:
No it’s not.
NobodySpecial
You’re assuming facts not in evidence, Cole. I don’t think the motherfuckers know HOW to read.
MattR
@JGabriel: You are forgetting about the silent “Democrat” that goes between “while” and “big” in DeMint’s statment. (Or “black” if you think it is more sinister, although in this case I think DeMint’s reaction would have been the same with any Democratic president)
Violet
@Elvis Elvisberg:
It seems Rush’s popularity is dropping:
Violet
Gah. I used the s-word in a quote and got sent to moderation. Will edit it for B-J consumption within the quote.
@Elvis Elvisberg:
It seems Rush’s popularity is dropping:
Note: “soshulist” in the quote above is changed from the original because of B-J stupid moderation rules.
General Stuck
@Villago Delenda Est:
And what makes you think they are not aware of that? The next two years is going to be an epic ideological showdown between the two parties in general, and Obama and the House wingnuts in particular. I don’t think anyone thinks there is going to be much of Obama’s agenda passed, including Obama.
It will be a pol game of chess with the 2012 elections as the backdrop and grand finale. If we can keep the government running and HCR funded, it will a major victory under those circumstances. This is the wingnut Waterloo, of sorts, and HCR must die.
So everything will be postured around those two things. HCR and the connivance of the wingers to kill it, and for Obama to go over their heads to the public and explain what is happening, and what it means for them. With the law slowly being implemented the whole time and people experiencing it, instead of only hearing right wing demogoguery.
The other part will be every policy proposal by Obama, and every counter proposal by the House wingers, that will be set for a single audience. The true swing voter indies that will likely decide the election. Nothing Obama proposes will get passed on the wingnut supposition it will be good for Obama, even if it is reasonable and in large part what the wingers want. The only time they will play is when they get all they want, which is what the tea tards demand.
Polls currently show Obama doing quite well with the swing voters, with all the frugality blather and proposing that means nothing toward ever becoming law, but tingles their nethers anyway.
I know I’m full of shit, but promise to wipe my ass when done.
Elisabeth
@Violet:
FWIW, I emailed ProFlowers to let them know my feelings about having Rush in their online ads. Apparently, I was not the first to contact them and they are “reviewing their marketing plan.”
Not holding my breath but my fingers are crossed.
Ash Can
@Midnight Marauder: I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again — that’s A-OK by me. The less the GOP House does, and the less time it spends doing it, the better. Naturally, stories like these make us point and laugh, and make the House Republicans look like slackers (to anyone who’s paying attention, at least). But if these idiots do nothing in the House but take naps in between holding farting contests, it beats hell out of them doing the kind of damage to this country we all know they’re capable of.
Elvis Elvisberg
@Violet:
Sure, and practically no one watches FNC, compared to any popular network show. (Beck gets around 2.5m last I saw, Glee gets like 12m). But the media is terrible at reporting the news, so if the right-wing paramedia is barking about something, the MSM will report it eventually. Rush & FNC matter because people say they matter, not because they actually matter.
MattR
@Elvis Elvisberg: IIRC, Beck averaged under 2 million viewers a night for January 2011.
Marc
Speaking of timing, Steve Benen had another great catch today, showing Sen. Sessions (R-AL) contradicting himself in the space of a few minutes. One minute, Obama’s proposed $1 trillion cut over 10 years is inconsequential, the next minute he’s praising the GOP’s proposal to cut $1 trillion over 10 years. It’s almost as if he doesn’t understand what he’s talking about…
JGabriel
General Stuck:
That’s Obama’s, for lack of a better word, schtick: Talk right, implement left.
I don’t like it. There are several problems with it, including (but not not limitied to) validating GOP talking points, and inadvertently moving the realm of the doable to the right. At least I hope it’s inadvertent.
And there won’t be a lot implementing left over the next two years to balance out the talking right.
.
Mark S.
@Violet:
Thanks for that link. It confirmed something someone said here a while ago: The only reason Levin is on the air is because his butt buddy Hannity insists on it.
It’s not too surprising. Recent studies have shown that rats exposed to the Mark Levin show attempt to perforate their eardrums.
SteveinSC
It has been nothing less than hilarious to watch the GOP dance around the issue of REAL deficit reduction. Spin and spin. Even someone like scarborough laughs at Boner. The sons-of-bitches are stuck between a rock and a hard place because they are perilously close to licking their fingers and touching the third rail. Worse, someone might come up with an idea, say, let’s all, rich and poor, contribute to reducing the deficit. Novel idea, that. The teabaggers (e.g. Ron and Rand Paul) are also leaning on them, so they have to come up with something, some buzz-word, someone, to snatch their chestnuts out of the fire or their sweetspot will slip away, never to return.
General Stuck
@JGabriel:
I know you don’t like it, nor does many others of the activist left, nor do i like it much. If there were more than 20 percent liberal voters in this country, I would be against it and think it bad politicking. But that isn’t the case, so we have to woo others on the ideological divide to win elections. And if you don’t win elections, you can’t govern, and republicans will be doing that. And under current conditions, think that is a very very very bad idea. imho
Nick
@JGabriel:
most GOP points have already been, fairly or unfairly, validated. He can’t un-validate them, he has to govern with that reality.
Violet
@Elvis Elvisberg:
The MSM is slow, but eventually they catch up with what’s going on. If Rush’s popularity is dropping and wingnuttery isn’t selling as well, they’ll report on it eventually.
@Mark S.:
Yeah, I thought that was interesting too. It’s an interesting article. Levin is really awful. Occasionally I hear him on the radio, and immediately change the station. His voice grates terribly.
bemused
Oh horrors. Cenk Uygur and Frank McGaffney arguing on my tv.
Nick
@Elvis Elvisberg:
If everyone who watches Glee was politically inclined, then Fox News would have no leg to stand on.
As it is, all 2.5 million viewers of Beck vote, perhaps 1/3 of Glee watches do, if we’re lucky.
Beulahmo
Timing indeed.
I listened to that jackass Ryan on NPR today trash the President’s proposed budget, basically saying Obama’s budget is all deception, before pulling some wild numbers out of his ass to counter the President’s calculations. When the interviewer asked if he could explain where in the world his numbers came from, he said he was taking into consideration tax increases that will happen in the future, plus the President’s numbers were all gimmicks, and blah, blah, blah (didn’t explain a goddam thing). The interviewer simply ended the exchange by saying that the White House will definitely disagree with his assumptions and calculations.
But here’s the beautiful part. When the interviewer asked how the Republican’s budget would address Ryan’s criticisms that Obama taxes too much and cuts spending too little, he said:
Why the f*ck haven’t those guys prepared a budget already?? Seriously. This is what those guys ran their campaigns on, and they’ve been boasting since November of last year about how they’re going to bring the budget under control and make the federal government accountable to voters.
Ryan hasn’t done the assignment yet; however, he’s somehow managed to go through the President’s proposal with lightning speed, so that he can get on radio and television to declare what a failure it is.
Republicans: Where is the work you promised, goddammit?? If you can’t offer a counter to the President’s proposal, you should be spending your time working instead of flapping your lips in front of microphones.
Assholes. Lying assholes.
Elvis Elvisberg
@Violet:
In a world where Paul Ryan is described as a “deficit hawk” despite his votes for Bush Jr. tax levels, the invasion of Iraq, & Medicare Part D, along with his Roadmap to Deficits Until 2063, I can’t agree.
@Nick: I dunno, there were like 130m voters in the 2008 general. The MSM acts like FNC, with something around 2-3m viewers, speaks for all 60m who voted for McCain. (In fairness, the GOP is pleased to act like that too, but it’s hard to tell which way the causality goes on that one).
Midnight Marauder
@Ash Can:
I completely agree with that sentiment. I, for one, am loving the new new culture war Republicans have launched–primarily focused on abortion and turning women into “pregnant females”–during their opening month controlling the House. For as long as we have derided these goons as being completely unserious, it is refreshing to see them take that message to heart and continuously propose legislation that has no realistic chance of being signed into law.
Let them spin their wheels on birtherism, inserting Big Government into every womb in the country, yelling about backdoor reparations with the Pigford settlements, and all the other flagrantly dishonest nonsense they keep pushing.
It just makes it that much easier to shape the terrain for 2012 in our favor.
General Stuck
With the weekly new unemployment claims dipping below 400 thousand, it looks like the economy is going to start producing jobs soon. So the wingnuts have pretty much quit spanking the monkey on that front, and now are focusing completely on the deaficit. It is mostly about setting the stage for killing the ACA, but also is getting to be about all they have, other than the usual social neanderthal wedge issues. But surprise, voters only really care about the deficit when the economy sucks with not creating jobs, so that tact will likely fizzle out too. Maybe they will start hawking a manned mission to Mars and a spaceship gap with the
SovietsRussians. It worked for Kennedy.burnspbesq
A Republican without a double standard is like a Carolina fan without an irrational hatred of Coach Ratface, i.e., impossible.
burnspbesq
@General Stuck:
“focusing completely on the deaficit”
Is that a typo or a Freudian slip? Cuz the average Republican certainly doesn’t seem to be conscious of how stupid he/she sounds.
NR
@General Stuck:
No it’s not. Obama and the wingnuts agree that discretionary government spending, and not health care costs or low taxes on the rich, is the cause of our current deficit problems. The only thing they disagree on is how much discretionary spending should be cut, not the basic premise.
Nick
Of course not, because the average voter has no idea how stupid he/she is.
Nick
@NR:
which is of course why Obama keeps saying health care costs and tax cuts help cause the deficit and why his budget includes eliminations of said tax cuts in 2013.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110214/ap_on_re_us/us_obama_taxes
General Stuck
@burnspbesq:
A gentleman never tells.
SRW1
Have you ever seen a decider read the whole file/report/case study/etc? That stuff makes your eyes glaze over and your brain hurt. What do you think advisers/experts/assitants are for? Why would there otherwise be such a thing as the ‘executive summary’?
General Stuck
@NR:
Oh NR, it’s all a crock of posturing shit from both sides right now, and will be for the next two years. Haven’t you been reading. The House wingers were calling for a trillion dollars cut spending, and Obama delivers that trillion in his budget, and the wingnuts are wailing it isn’t enough and they hate it. WHY? cause it still fully funds implementation in HCR, and wasn’t proposed by THEM. Nothing is real, nothing to get hung about. Just sit back and watch the show NR. And hope the wingnuts don’t burn it all down, trying to get Obama’s goat, which is all they care about right now. Not the deficit, not spending. Only killing HCR and Obama’s goat.
Cacti
@General Stuck:
Which is why they’ve spent the first month and a half of the new Congress on the same old culture war crapola.
They got nothin’.
General Stuck
@Cacti:
Yup, but that also makes them even more dangerous holding one strand of the national purse strings. Wild animals cornered, and all that kind of thing.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti:
Yes, but it pleases their cretinous base immensely.
Jeanne ringland
Sort of off topic, but not entirely, this popped up on my FaceBook today:
“My Thoughts. I think that the United States People need to stand together. To reclaim this nation as it was meant to be. Why are ancestors left there home lands for freedom. Our freedoms are slowly being taken away. We are over taxed. We are paying to much for Gas. We are not doing enough for changes. We need to take back our Senate and Congress and point our own leader that is not rich as hell Put someone in there w”
I am trying like hell to remember who this person is, how they got on my friends list.
PurpleGirl
@SteveinSC: Is that fiat money or gold and silver coinage?
Jeanne ringland
@Violet: You’ve given me reason to hope, I hope it’s not a false hope.
Jeanne ringland
@Nick: My daughter made the observation that Fox has an insane dual personality in that they produce a lot of very popular shows and some with what could be termed liberal themes, and then there’s their news programs. And it’s even more split personality when you compare the local with the national news programs.
4jkb4ia
OT: Schnucks is real It is my default grocery store and the most reliable for kosher cheese.
A Humble Lurker
@JGabriel:
I get where you’re coming from, but…isn’t he kind of shifting the paradigm too? I mean, the right has become so nuts the things that used to be right are commie soshulist revolution talk. If he talks right while going left, he’s moving the right to the left. He’s shifting the Overton window in our direction.