(Tony Auth via GoComics.com)
Too bad the GOPer elephants don’t have anywhere near the grace or dignity of their iconic image:
Two senior Republicans said Sunday that they might be open to raising new government revenue as part of a deal to resolve the dispute over the federal debt ceiling, but they warned that there was little time to enact a comprehensive deal.
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One of the senators, John Cornyn of Texas, said he would consider eliminating some tax breaks and corporate subsidies in the context of changes in the tax code, provided there was not an overall increase in taxes.
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“I think it’s clear that the Republicans are opposed to any tax hikes, particularly during a fragile economic recovery,” Mr. Cornyn said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Now, do we believe tax reform is necessary? I would say absolutely.” […] __
Mr. Cornyn, a member of the Senate leadership, also said that Republicans would be open to a short-term deal on the debt ceiling to provide more time for a comprehensive agreement. […] __
Mr. McCain said Sunday that closing the tax breaks that Mr. Obama mentioned would have a negligible impact on the nation’s fiscal condition and would defy the will of the voters.
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“The principle of not raising taxes is something that we campaigned on last November, and the result of the election was that the American people didn’t want their taxes raised and they wanted us to cut spending,” he said on the CNN program “State of the Union.”
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He added that his fellow Republican senator from Arizona, Jon Kyl, a member of the budget negotiating team, had said there were certain measures that Republicans would consider, and that he was open to them. He refused to name any.
Tap-dancing heffalumps! These dumb thugs really have decided they can “win” by destroying the voting public’s faith in the whole American system of government. As long as it takes down their Democratic “enemies”, they can’t see — or don’t care — that the ensuing President McCain (ha!) or Cornyn (who he?) administration would preside over the desolate wreckage of our 225-year-old experiment.
AAA Bonds
You ever wonder what the results will be, now that it’s apparent that our elites show no ability to practically predict even the near future, and every incentive to lie?
Reading Dimitri Orlov’s collapsarian views, I’m surely not convinced that he has the power to predict what will occur either. However, it’s frightening that he’s about as believable as the people in charge of our natural resources, Democratic or Republican – and he suggests that within a decade or so, American life will be unrecognizable.
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2011/06/sailing-craft-for-post-collapse-world.html
I’m honestly at a loss as to exactly what is motivating the Obama administration’s aggressive extension of our wars across an oil-rich area of the world, as long as I cling to my current belief that this isn’t actually about oil.
It makes a man want to become a conspiracy theorist.
JPL
Anne, If Brown votes along party lines to tank the economy, will that hurt him?
Nellcote
Silly me, I thought they campaigned on Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!
Proudhon
It’s even worse than the desolate wreckage of our 225-year-old experiment! It’s actually the desolate wreckage of our 235-year-old experiment!
Maude
Cornyn and McCain are a couple of turnips. The incompetence they show has always been there. They have no idea what they are doing and so they just want Obama to fail.
If members of the media had any idea how government worked and what default would mean, they could ask serious questions. The turnips wouldn’t know the answers, but at least people could see that.
jwb
Nellcote: You clearly don’t speak Gooper.
Judas Escargot
Christopher Titus on Comedy Central right now.
Much theraputic.
Villago Delenda Est
This is the same John McCain that told David Letterman that he had to cancel an appearance on Letterman’s show because the “economy is cratering”, and instead of heading back to DC, went on Katie Couric’s show.
PeakVT
….provided there was not an overall increase in taxes.
Just fracking ridiculous. Federal tax receipts are at record lows. Taxes will have to go up, and we might as well start by raising them on filers with a lot of money. Corporations in general are flush with cash, and energy companies are making fantastic profits, so they should be the first targets.
Also, too, it’s a 222 year old experiment. The first one failed after 8 years.
Maude
efgoldman, yeah, that wasn’t nice to say about turnips.
bkny
the gop doesn’t believe in representative democracy. and their contempt for people not in the upper income brackets has been obvious forever; but their decades long messaging has driven the middle class to contribute to their own demise.
i honestly think this is the end of this country. it’s just what/how the next incarnation unfolds.
Litlebritdifrnt
You know what fine. Go ahead and fucking do it, you know why? Cause the smart among us have been stocking up on food for the last 18 months. What have the rich been doing? Buying gold and diamonds, which will be worth the equivalent of shit. I will put my stockpiles of food against your stockpiles of gold any day of the week. I will be able to charge you $1,000 worth of gold for a can of soup if your galtian overlord world takes over. Have at it.
dr. bloor
They got pantsed by Chuck Schumer this week, who started hammering on the talking point that the Republicans are trying to sabotage the economy. Everything that dribbled out of McCain’s, Kyl’s, Cornyn’s et al’s mouths this weekend has been a lame-ass, content-free effort to knock that argument down.
Linnaeus
The GOP no longer cares for the American democratic experiment; it’s neofeudalism that they want.
PeakVT
@efgoldman – egg-zactly. If only the founding fathers had worked harder to end slavery…
jwb
@bkny: The robber baron era wasn’t actually that much different from today in terms of noxious politics and Galtian overlords, so we’ve managed to survive it before. On the other hand, every time you go through a period like this there is a chance that things won’t turn out so well in the end, and we are a declining power this time rather than an ascending one, so that places added strain on the system.
Tonal Crow
@Nellcote:
The hellbound victim looked around in amazement at the superheated dark caves filled with demons porking the detainess with pitchforks. “But but but Mr. Satan, when St. Peter brought me to visit yesterday this was a beautiful beach with hot babes and all the tropical drinks I could stomach! What happened?”
“That was the campaigning,” laughed
Satanthe Republicans. “This is the governing.”General Stuck
Just ordered some of this stuff, called True Lemon that is supposed to be 100 percent chrystalized lemon juice to make all natural lemonade. Anybody that can attest to that on BJ?
Yankee Doodle Charlie
Cain
if anybody wants googleplus let me know.. I would love to have a politics circle. :P or a balloon-juice circle or a tunch circle.. or fuck it a knitting circle
+3
General Stuck
Fucking republicans are so completely full of shit these days, I don’t even react to it in a normal way. I think of them as dandy young roosters wearing all grey costumes and caps, with a bedroll wrapped around their backs.
Cain
@Litlebritdifrnt
Unless the galtian overlords talk to teh govt to seize your stock piles for the “good of the nation”
meaning.. the good of the rich. I see red dawn:democrats under siege coming.
+3
JPL
Stuck, Charlie is so cute. You are a lucky guy to have him.
General Stuck
Yes I am lucky to have the little guy. Best doggie bud I’ve ever had, and just a all around sweetheart of a pooch.
wobblybits
@Cain: I would love an invite. It would be great to have a bj circle :)
gatinha90274 at gmail
+1/2 (working slowly here as the night is young)
Svensker
General Stuck, Sir, that is one winsome little doggie. And where you live is frigging beautiful.
General Stuck
Svensker
thanks
Cain
@wobblybit
let’s be a little careful. :-) We don’t want a “bj” circle that would be something else entirely!
edit: I’ve emailed you the invite.. hope you see it.
wobblybits
@Cain: Damn, now how did I miss that. LOL
How about a “Tunch and Friends” circle?
Evolved Deep Southerner
OK, I’ve invented a tasty new summer drink: To a tall glass of cracked ice, add a jigger of vodka, two to three dashes of Angostura bitters, and top off with club soda.
What should I name this drink?
erlking
@Evolved Deep Southerner
Well, a Bearded Lady is vodka, bitters and ginger ale so…a Beardless Lady? Nah, that doesn’t work.
UncertaintyVicePrincipal
Yes. I can attest to that on Balloon Juice. It cuts down on the balloony rubber aftertaste.
General Stuck
What should I name this drink?
Call it a DH Lawrence
nyick nyick —– fick fick fick…… Indians!
LongHairedWeirdo
If Obama is wise, he should announce that he would veto a short term extension on the debt ceiling; “I want the House and Senate to do their job, and do it right. They’ve had all year to do this.”
Other than that, I think he has it right – keep calling their bluff.
Dennis SGMM
@Cain
I’d be honored to join.
binhthuy71(at)yahoo.com
BethanyAnne
@General Stuck #20. I use True Lemon – I have a box of it at work, and I put it in my tea. It’s a little weak for my taste, so I use 2, where I would use just 1 wedge. Other than that it’s fine.
wobblybits
@Cain: The invite hasn’t shown up yet. But I will let you know when it does. Thanks again :)
(Hope I gave you the right email addy…gatinha90274 (at) gmail.com. It looks like I did but I am now +3 so I may have imagined that I typed it correctly)
General Stuck
thanks for responding. Apparently, they have it in different forms depending on what you use it for. Sounds like you have the form with small packets to give a lemon taste to whatever you are drinking or Added onto a salad or something.
I almost ordered that, but then saw the other kind that is their original packets to make lemonade out of, guess I’ll find out if its strong enough for that, or not.
Mark S.
Am I losing my mind or is sometimes the cucumber just outside of Kortney’s mouth and sometimes it’s in it? Fuck, I didn’t think anything would make me miss that Pamela Anderson ad. At least it isn’t that poor dog with the fork stuck in his head.
God this place gets some shitty ads.
Mnemosyne
@ General Stuck:
Beware — it has stevia in it, which for my money is one of the worst-tasting artificial sweeteners out there (and I don’t like a single one of ’em). The regular True Lemon is unsweetened, so it’s really just lemon juice powder.
BethanyAnne
@Mark S. I don’t know – I haven’t seen it yet. But I did see Google Syndicate ads for a few weeks. And they showed up right after I visited an amazing tacky statue website (Tosano? Toscano? something like that). I was like “aaa! can’t! escape! kitsch!”
BethanyAnne
@Mnemosyne & Stuck – I have the True Lemonade, too. That I love, um, mostly because of the truvia, lol.
Elliecat
I am losing my mind because for some reason ever since seeing it side by side with the headline about Rand Paul the Dick I keep reading it as “She ‘Loves’ Her Vagina”. God I hate that goddamned ad.
jimbob
Lolis
I am genuine when I say I am really nervous about the debt ceiling vote. This has major repurcussions that one side seems to refuse to acknowledge. And of course the media won’t directly report the truth because that would be impolite. We live in crazy times. I hope President Obama will do what needs to be done when it comes down to it. This is another big mess he has to take responsibility for. It must really suck to be him.
AAA Bonds
@Evolved Deep Southerner
@erlking
“Shaven Lady”.
General Stuck
I love Stevia since first using it a month or so ago. I get no weird taste, nor after taste that it’s supposed to have. And have thrown out all my other sweeteners and buy those big bags of loose Stevia.
Ed Drone
@erlking
Call the drink the “Shaven Lady,” of course.
Ed
Cain
@Dennis and @wobblybits
I sent another invite. I hope it shows up.. I should show up.. let me know if it doesn’t.
Mnemosyne
@ General Stuck
If you like stevia, then you’ll probably like the True Lemonade. I can’t stand the stuff but, then, I can’t stand any artificial sweetener. I’m even getting picky about high fructose corn syrup, which has a weird burned aftertaste to it, IMO.
Cain
I made some new drink that.. well.. only an indian would love. It has some black salt (volcanic salt.. salty with a sulphuric flavor.. used in chaat masala) I was trying to duplicate a flavor in chaat with fruit..
My wife didn’t immediately reject it, but I have some work to do to prefect it.
Mark S.
@Lolis:
I’ve been nervous about the debt ceiling for months, because these teabaggers are stupid enough and crazy enough to do it. As shitty as Reagan, the Bushes, Dole, Gingrich and those other assholes were, they were never crazy enough to default on the debt because they knew it would be game over for the global economy. The teabaggers are too dense to have any idea what would actually happen.
TenguPhule
August 2nd: Republicans Refuse to Raise Debt Ceiling.
15 minutes later, Obama invokes 14th Amendment to fuck them up.
5 minutes after that, Congressional Republicans are rounded up as terrorists under the Patriot Act and never heard from again.
And everyone lives happily ever after.
/I can dream, can’t I?
MikeJ
I know this is OT (in an open thread?), but can we now please, please stop pretending to like Hugo Chavez now that St. Noam has finally denounced him?
nancydarling
Mnemosyne, my daughter mixes stevia with xylitol and the two together don’t leave an after taste–or so she says. You should avoid HFC anyway. Studies show it isn’t metabolized like sugar, and some researchers say it is a big contributor to our national obesity epidemic.
I am not ordinarily a soda drinker, but had some Coca Cola leftover from family visiting which was bottled in Mexico. They use the old, pre-HFC formula there. One sip and it was like “WOW! This is how coke used to taste”. If you are a cola drinker, hie yourself off to the nearest mercado and try it. I don’t know what other brands of soft drinks they carry as I only buy coke for my niece’s husband
MikeJ
Nope. Five minutes after that, republicans start talking about the Obama deficit because they got to vote as wingnutty as they wanted and Obama saved them from the wrath of Wall Street. Using the 14th is bailing out the Republicans letting them say nutty shit and never have to make a vote to destroy the economy.
TenguPhule
If he has to invoke the 14th to save the country, Obama might as well go all in and gank the entire GOP Political Party in the nads. Show trials notwithstanding, they can’t backbite if they’re dead.
burnspbesq
@MikeJ:
I never liked Hugo Chavez. He’s just another caudillo.
CaseyL
TenguPhule, I have the same dream. Those GOP bastards have been gnawing away at the fabric of this country since the 70s, and actively working for its downfall since Reagan.
If Obama were to round them up as the traitors and terrorists they are, it would justify his keeping the Bush-era police state policies in place.
nancydarling
MikeJ, I have never been a huge fan of Chavez, although I think in his early elections, at least, they were free and fair. However,I do admire his taste in authors—Eduardo Galeano.
Mnemosyne
@ nancydarling
I (re-)discovered Coke with real sugar a few years ago and have developed into a major soda snob. I used to have to drive down to Galco’s Soda Pop Stop for a fix, but now BevMo and Whole Foods have started stocking quite a few real sugar sodas. My new favorite brand is GuS (Grown-up Soda), which isn’t as sickly sweet as regular soda.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
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Fortunately, when the president does it, he or she is not a dirtbag perp.
.
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dogwood
Actually the Republicans are in a bind with this debt ceiling stuff. They want to keep the economy stagnant so they can win the next election, but if they let the country go into default, they won’t be able to fix it with tax cuts, deregulation and overturning the ACA. They won’t be holding on to the levers of power long when unemployment doubles, savings are wiped out and interest rates skyrocket. I know that someone earlier said she was genuinely scared, and I get that. I don’t think we get the government we deserve, but we get the government that voters elect. No use being frightened now. Save it for August 2, and react then.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@ erlking
AAA Bonds
Ed Drone
“The Shaven Lady” it shall be. I knew I could count on this crowd to come up with a fitting name.
karen marie
Mnemosyne @ 62:
Best soda on the market right now is Izze. No artificial sweetners, no HFC, just fruit juice and seltzer. It is very, very delicious.
Clementine is perfect for gin.
James E. Powell
Republicans are better at holding together as they walk toward the cliff. They have to be because they don’t have anything else. If they crack, even once, they lose all their power to control debate and events.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
its time to make the case, if taxes can’t go up, then we can’t cut spending, because without taxes going up, no deficit plan is serious. then you state, plainly, that regardless of the deficit, the debt ceiling must be raised.
its time to take the game off of the gop field, unless they concede, in order to keep in the discussion. the case needs to be made for why the debt ceiling is important though.
Odie Hugh Manatee
As much as I would like to see any crisis averted, I hope Obama doesn’t declare the debt limit unconstitutional. I think that it would be a huge mistake to save the Republicans from themselves on this issue. If he did so they would have a heyday in the press demonizing him as some kind of dictator pulling an unconstitutional move to bypass them in some kind of power grab. The idiots/haters amongst us would swallow the bullshit hook, line and sinker, making even more ‘news’ that the M$M could rant and rave about.
If they insist on bringing everything down then let them do it. Once the government cuts back everything but essential services, the Democrats could point at the Repubs and blame the mess on their refusal to face reality to protect their rich benefactors from paying their fair share of taxes. The people of Minnesota are getting a small taste of what happens when Republicans refuse to negotiate in good faith and I will bet that they are going to be getting sick and tired of it once the unemployment and state checks to state employees stop being cashed and spent. Businesses will suffer, as will landlords and many other aspects of the economy. The Republicans and rich are counting on Obama to save the day so they can go on demonizing him.
Let them eat it, shove it down their throats. Minnesota’s governor was smart in refusing to extend the ‘negotiations’ for ten days, saying that they had been working on their budget since January and the extension was only a stunt. I think it was an attempt to put off the shutdown until after the holiday weekend. The Repubs knew that the state park closing would have an immediate impact on local businesses and citizens who had plans for the weekend. IMO, the Repubs realized this and tried to delay it until after the holiday so they would have time to work public opinion.
I bet Minnesotans are pissed royally that their plans (profiting at business and vacationing) were ruined and they are going to be looking for blood real soon. Let the Repubs choke on this mess they made. We adults have to stop saving them from themselves.
Sometimes children have to get burned before they learn to stop playing with fire. Let them burn.
Kirbster
It really does appear the the party of Rule or Ruin has taken it to heart that it is “better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.”
They’re determined to “kill the hostages” one way or another. Will it be a quick plunge into Great Depression 2.0 via the inevitable stock and bond market crashes reulting from the default, or slow motion slide into third-world social darwinism with no social safety nets? Neither prospect is appealing.
I’ll probably write a letter of protest on real paper to my alleged Senator, Scott Brown (R – U.S. Chamber of Commerce), although I doubt that it will do any good.
Cermet
Its rather nice that this is all occurring as we travel along the peak oil curve – having the economy burn down as resources run dry and AGW bites is just adding so much icing on the cake. Damn, amerikan’s having their heads up their ass’s hasn’t been the best idea for a military hyper bully. All our gold has flowed out of the pockets of the middle class to the asswipe elite – good thinking by the thugs and their ass licking holy hypocrite so-called christ followers. Family values as they fuck the ass of the average (IQ challenged) amerikan. But I’m not bitter – at least the BJ’ers are with it … and allows ass’s like me to vent.