It never, ever fucking stops:
Is the old John McCain back?
The fiery, independent version of the Republican senator from Arizona took to the floor of the Senate Wednesday morning. Demanding “straight talk,” Mr. McCain accused conservatives of abandoning reason by opposing the House Republican leader’s plan to resolve the debt crisis.
No matter what happens, any bill that is passed, Reid’s, Boehner’s, whoever, we are getting an austerity packed, conservative shit sandwich. Period. The choices on the table are armageddon, right wing bullshit from Reid, really right-wing bullshit from Boehner. Yet here is Michael Shear, who should know better, pushing the notion that independent mavericky centrist John McCain is somehow the portrait of moderation for yelling down the crazies who want the country to burn.
The “old John McCain.” Just shoot me. Make the pain stop.
How did we get such a horrible media?
But on Wednesday morning, it looked like the maverick had returned.
Tire swings and barbecue for everyone. Fuck it.
Cris (without an H)
I know of somebody who can do that for you.
pragmatism
“This is the kind of crack political thinking that turned Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell into G.O.P. nominees.”
as was your genius veep pick, my friend.
eemom
can we make it a murder-suicide?
Kiril
You know what he should do? He should just get them all in a room and tell them to cut the shit. Problem solved.
Lit3Bolt
Because a good media would cut into profits.
patroclus
Please Richard John Santorum! Think of all the “Ricks” out there who don’t deserve it!
Violet
They must be desperate if they’re trying to rehab McCain’s image.
Ron
But we have a liberal media! That’s what we hear.
Reality Check
Shut the fuck up McCain. You’re yesterday’s news.
Tonal Crow
I hear that McCain is suspending his campaign to fly to Washington to break the deadlock and raise the debt ceiling!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Kind of says a lot that a short tempered, impulse driven, cocky SOB like McCain is the voice of sweet, sweet reason with that crowd
aisce
mccain/bloomberg 2012!
Perspecticus
“How did we get such a horrible media?”
How? We asked for it every day for the last 40 years, that’s how.
Flashman
This can only be good news for John McCain.
pragmatism
the johnny mac experience:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8IAlcqGqnQ
The Dangerman
Would swinging from the end of a rope followed by barbecuing the remains be a suitable alternative?
El Tiburon
So, is this good for McCain?
Question: who is more fuck-dumb-stupid:
1. American corporate media
2. Teatards
3. Sarah Palin/Michele Bachmann/Louis Gohmert
4. The turd stinking up my toilet?
The Moar You Know
Barbecued tire swings and anthrax.
It’s what’s for dinner, America, bought to you by high Broderism and Democratic cowardice.
Try not to choke on it.
Tonal Crow
@aisce (12): McCain/David Brooks 2012!
cathyx
The right wing love their doddering old fools. Reagan, Thurman, Stevens, McCain.
Punchy
Which female rep did he brand a c#nt?
A Mom Anon
Oh for Fuck’s Sake. Seriously. The man who brought us Caribou Barbie is accusing his fellow partners in crime of abandoning reason?
STFU grandpa and go be a multi millionaire in the desert.
Ash Can
Sounds like someone misses the old barbecue-and-tire-swing parties.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
I guess you people didn’t realize he was a POW.
Ash Can
@Punchy: None. That was his wife.
Just Some Fuckhead
My grandfather had McCain swings when he got really old. One minute, he’d be yelling at the clouds or complaining about the TV Man and the next minute, he’d be singing to the cat. At least McCain doesn’t go out in his pajamas.
eemom
OTOH, there is a certain poetic beauty to these morons exhuming the moldering corpse of The Maverick, of all things, while the country is melting down before our very eyes. I mean it illustrates rather perfectly just exactly how useless they are.
General Stuck
What kind a circus would it be, without a Big Top McCain?
My friends
TooManyJens
Opposing the deliberate tanking of the American economy makes you a maverick now? God damn, that is one low bar.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
Punchy
his wife
kwAwk
As I heard on the radio this morning, getting an austerity packed plan might not be completely a bad thing.
One way or another the Bush Tax Cuts expire next year and giving into the nut jobs this year will take away their leverage to fight for an extension.
Perhaps this is why the orange one is so intent on having another debt ceiling vote next year.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
I’m not sure how this differs from the recent Hamsher post. The both suck and they both are right.
cleek
@kwAwk:
there will always be some must-pass bill they can attach the extension to: the budget, defense spending, etc..
shortstop
I was thinking of going for Italian. Maybe we can compromise.
hhex65
demanding “straight talk”
Old man yells for bus
Anne Laurie
I believe the phrase you are looking for is GIGO — Garbage In, Garbage Out”.
Select for individuals more interested in careerism and credentialism than mere lowly reporting, reward courtierism, punish independence, and never forget that money is a magical substance whose proximity makes the foolish wise and the wicked saintly. Do this for 40 years or so (hello, Ron Ziegler) and you end up with a bunch of half-bright, undereducated bootlickers who honestly don’t know there’s a difference between actual news and fluffing the egos of their paymasters by regurgitating this week’s catchphrase.
Complaining that our modern media is toxic, boring, and bad for our communal health is like bitching about the nutritional quality of Big Macs — they are what they are, and their popularity speaks to what “we”, as a society, have decided is important.
Ash Can
@kwAwk: Nah, they’ll fight anyway. For that, and for whatever other shiny explosive objects catch their eyes. The only hope is that, in the meantime, enough folks back in their districts wake up and/or undergo buyer’s remorse that their asses get fired next November.
Tonal Crow
So how long before Moosebrains twits an over-the-top-stupid message about the debt ceiling? Or, how about Ross Perot reprising “Get under the hood and fix it“?
jl
I blame it on the decline of the studio system, family radio, and the rise of TV reality shows. And the decline of the soaps, can’t forget the soaps.
Back in the day, there would be more jobs for writing serials and recurring characters.
Not sure if McCain would fit into Flash Gordon or Allen’s Alley better.
Edge of Night is still on, right? That show featured a lot of
old coots codgers oldsters, mature recurring characters (I am slightly foggy and imprecise on it since only thing I remember seeing was the opening credits). Maybe could get McCain, or the writers, a gig on that.jwb
What are you talking about? This is the best media money can buy.
Violet
@Tonal Crow:
She’s been pretty quiet, but did go on Greta Van Scientology’s show last night and talk about some.
Violet
Oh look. The stock market is down over 200. I think it’s finally sinking in that the lunatics are running the asylum.
aisce
@ kwawk
dude, 98% of the bush tax cuts, at minimum, are gonna be made permanent. obama says so every single time he goes on tv. every single time. he said it again on monday.
i wish the 11-d chess snarkers would show some self-awareness and admit that there’s no game being played here. the two parties will fight over the last 2% (plus cap gains), the republicans will lie about small business owners, they’ll haggle over expenditures and corporate loopholes and the amt, and some compromise will be worked out. and it will be shitty, but that’s the way it goes when politicians are terrified to be caught raising taxes on the middle class these days. but there’s no fucking way that the entirety of the bush tax cut framework will be allowed to expire.
TooManyJens
@Violet: Yeah, that was classy.
Palin: American Ideals Are ‘Foreign’ To Obama Due To ‘His Background’
shortstop
Tonal and Violet: Hasn’t she been averring for weeks that it shouldn’t be raised under any circumstances because “we have enough money”? She is even less able to do simple math than her children are to unwrap condoms.
jwb
jl: I admit that with I’ve been feeling a bit like, with the debt ceiling fight, the whole country has been dropped into a reality TV show. It actually makes quite a bit more sense if you think about it that way.
pragmatism
@ Violet
my wingnut co worker is standing by the tv in the break room telling people that since it is only down 200, it is proof that there will be no negative consequences to default.
Tonal Crow
Slightly OT, but yesterday I re-raised the idea of the Federal Reserve cancelling the $1.5T of treasury bonds that it bought during QE2, thus freeing up that amount of room under the debt ceiling. Someone said that the Fed’s holdings aren’t counted under the debt ceiling, but what I found on the Treasury and Fed web pages indicates otherwise. Whether the Fed has the authority to cancel the bonds is another question, which I haven’t researched.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Be hard as hell to get the YOUNG one back.
jwb
Violet: It will take a drop 10 times that to convince the overlords that they need to kill the beast. They still think they can ride it and that it helps them.
Violet
@jwb:
Can we vote the Teabaggers off the island, then? Who won the Immunity Challenge?
Martin
@Violet:
Not yet. It took -800 point days to get folks to do stuff back in 2008. They’ll write this off as just a regular bad day.
Oh, look:
Cue the morons from Texas to wonder how grandma will be able to get her groceries home from the store with fewer than 430HP.
Bender
Nonsense, of course. US government spending increases 7.5% (from an inflated “stimulus” baseline, unless the GOP can get it corrected) each year. Neither Boehner’s nor Reid’s plan do anything to stop the overall rise in government spending.
I can’t believe I have to tell an adult American this, but a Washington “cut” is not really a real-world “cut.” It’s just a reduction in the increase of spending. You can whine “Draconian” as much as you want, but that’s the language of the Washington hog-trough.
If we get serious about real, actual cuts. it would be a fine welcome to the real world in 2011, John. I guess reality has a right-wing bias — it will just take Washington a few years to get it. Governments have to have a plan to pay for what they spend these days, as the governments of Europe have already discovered. Crazy, I know!
2008: Styrofoam Greek-style columns
2011: Concrete Greek-style debt
jwb
Violet: The teabaggers must have immunity at the moment, don’t you think?
Hunter Gathers
OT, but you’re going to LOVE this shit
Shorter David Frum – who let these fucking niggers in the White House?
Violet
@jwb:
Yeah, probably. But the good thing about reality shows, there’s always another challenge around the corner and you don’t get to keep that immunity idol forever.
shortstop
pragmatism:
Pee on his or her desk chair while he/she is jackassing it up in the breakroom.
What? I didn’t say I’ve ever done it.
Cermet
But he was against torture before he was for it.
John S.
I love how Balloon Juice Bender is just as full of shit as Futurama Bender. I’m guessing that is a feature, not a bug.
jwb
John, you really have to install the troll upgrade. Even Bender’s getting boring. I mean if a troll is neither crazily stupid or incapable of getting under your skin and irritating you, what’s the point?
The Dangerman
@shortstop:
I’m fairly sure that violates some health codes.
I suggest some colon blow in his/her coffee.
danimal
Wait a minute, folks. The ‘old John McCain’ really is back. You know, the one in the back pocket of the financial industry. The cranky conservative from Arizona. The endless self-promoter who switches positions more than a sailboat captain. The shameless media suckup. That John McCain is most definitely back.
He never left.
Martin
@Tonal Crow: Yeah, it is counted, but:
Yeah, I don’t know about that either. It’d effectively be the Fed making a $1.5T free-and-clear donation to the federal government. I can’t imagine why that would be illegal, but I’m not sure Obama would want it. Having the fed bail out the Treasury sounds like a great way to make sure this never gets resolved – I’d think the tea party would LOVE that particular flow of money.
jl
nice article and chart on credit default swaps, whose movements, unlike stocks, bonds and gold, have been more than blips.
On U.S. Debt, An Early-Warning Indicator Flashes Red
by Marilyn Geewax
http://www.npr.org/2011/07/27/138720662/on-u-s-debt-an-early-warning-indicator-flashes-red
danimal
@jwb – I think the troll upgrade comes with the “Reply” button service pack.
pragmatism
@ shortstop:
lolz. the breakroom self policied it. a nice lady from finance asked him how much it would have to go down to alarm him. he tried to say that there were other reasons why it went down today but couldn’t name any. there was some chuckling and he left.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Hunter Gathers @ 55 – Man, Frum must have been desperate for a reason to hit the smelling salts.
I do love that so many of the commenters are like, “Wait just a damn minute. You just got through telling us they’re a bunch of elitist snobs.”
kay
Thanks. Read the comments. They’re absolutely wonderful. They tear Frum a new one.
One commenter points out that Frum got nearly every fact wrong, which made me laugh. Frum looks at a photo of the Obama family and sees things that aren’t there.
CalD
By buying what they’re selling.
jl
@55 Need to find that picture of Betty Ford dancing on the Oval Office desk.
tomvox1
I am confused: How is McCain beseeching his fellow GOPers to toe the establishment party line (i.e the Boehner plan) a “return of the maverick”?
So much MSM fail…
gnomedad
@Hunter Gathers:
I’ve heard that the Obamas also pee and poop RIGHT THERE IN THE WHITE HOUSE.
Violet
@Hunter Gathers:
Skimmed the comments and pretty much everyone seems to be calling him an idiot for that post. I guess that’s something.
artem1s
@shortstop:
he understands that JUST today right? and pretty much all in the last hour or two?
Culture of Truth
Demanding “straight talk,” Mr. McCainaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhh!!!!!!!!!
[ runs screaming from the room ]
Southern Beale
And speaking of it never stopping, apparently more media than Tea Partiers showed up at their “don’t back down” rally outside the Senate today.
I can’t believe our entire national economy is about to go down the toilet because of a handful of crazies.
Hunter Gathers
@kay
You’re welcome.
I just love it when one of the supposed ‘non-evil conservatives’, especially the one who gave us the ‘axis of evil’ makes a bunch of shit up to make himself feel better.
‘Sure, my old boss may be the biggest fuck-up of all time, but at least his family didn’t soil the furniture!’
To call Frum a douchbag would be an insult to douchebags.
pragmatism
@artem1s:
yes he understands that but he doesn’t want to believe it is tied to the spectre of default.
Tonal Crow
Not really. The Fed is just a federal agency, like the Treasury. The bonds are just a pledge by the Treasury to pay the Fed the agreed interest and principal. But the Fed would just destroy that money at some point anyway (assuming the economy rises from the pits and inflation expectations become an issue), so why not just cancel the bonds and do it now?
I’m not sure what Obama wants. But this is another gun in his holster. If he’ll draw it is another question.
PreservedKillick
You know, there are far more than a handful of people in the media.
And if you want to blame someone, that’s who I’d look at.
Martin
@Hunter Gathers:
Who will teach this trailer trash to stop standing on the furniture! And wear some fucking shoes!
Scott P.
Because of course the population magically never goes up and isn’t getting any older, and the cost of health care isn’t going up, so it’s not like our expenses are increasing.
slag
@kay:
I had the same thought.
I’m sure David Frum is not the first conservative blogger to allow his profound racial anxieties to trigger his vision impairment. But he’s the first to put the evidence so blatantly on the record. Why? Somebody should fire his press aide.
jl
@81 thanks. I was looking for that pic. But it isn’t the Oval Office is it? That is the room the Cabinet meets in right?
Can you find a video of Dolly Madison wisecracking on her ad hoc WH tours that include rummaging through Jefferson’s closets. I want one with lots of cleavage.
Martin
Ok, let’s try this again.
A Washington cut is a cut against the future projected spending level, already factoring in population increase, aging population, cost of health care, etc. based on certain assumptions regarding existing legislation and so on.
Trollenschlongen
Ummm…you forgot the conservative shit sandwiched prepared as a satisfying treat by Mr. Obama.
singfoom
Sane policy gone
Put career before country
Tea Party House Borg
Horrible haiku aside, this is kabuki on one hand and a horrible disaster in the making on the other hand. Any plan that does not include both spending cuts and tax increases is not serious.
I would be depressed if there wasn’t something I could do to affect the situation. Oh shit, there isn’t, since both parties are owned by big business and any 3rd party is just a threat to the lesser evil. I guess I’ll just vent on the internet to feel better and find external validation.
Well, Jefferson, Hamilton, et al, we tried, but some assholes went and ruined the whole thing. Good times for a while though.
ETA: et al != et all
Bulworth
This didn’t sound like a promising teabag rally to begin with. Boner is one of them.
JWL
Cole: Are you aware McCain was a POW during the Vietnam War? Well, he was!
Who the hell do you think you are?
Canadian Shoggoth
Old Man Shouts at Floor, Not Clouds! Maverick!!
arguingwithsignposts
@pragmatism: Yes, apparently, the Dow is down approximately 400 since Friday last.
Martin
Yesterday, the US collected $2.225B in taxes and paid $1.887B to DOD. Anyone see some spending that could be cut?
shortstop
OT, Dan Savage suggests that Rick Santorum step off the renewed gay-bashing.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Violet #51:
Wrong reality show. This is Chopped. Your basket contains: pizza dough, a glass of Orange Julius, a can of botulism, a bag of cheetos, and 10 lbs of C4. Good luck making something to eat from that. And this is only the appetizer course. Don’t even ask what’s going to be in the basket next if we survive this round.
Yevgraf
OT…
Suburban/Exurban sprawl created a lot of the problems we suffer today.
– Longer food/water commodity transport lines
– More cars and roads
– Extension of expensive infrastructure, which diminished the economic impact of scaled urban economies
– Creation of a false sense of “bootstrapness” among suburban/exurban white folks, leading to a loss of identity as a part of a community and a skewed sense of independence
Why do I talk about this?
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/BofA-Donates-Then-Demolishes-bloomberg-946456059.html
I’d rather see them start ripping up partially completed or 4 year empty homes in the burbs. Return those properties to constructive agricultural use.
jwb
arguingwithsignposts: It won’t get the overlords’ attention until it drops below 10,000. It may take even more than that if it keeps descending slowly, 100-200 points a day.
pragmatism
@arguingwithsignposts
this gentleman is too far gone to accept any negative repurcussions from anything the gopers do. politics and religion aside (he’s a rick warren parishioner), he’s not a bad guy. just heavily invested in seeing mcconnell’s goal come true–1 term prez.
Norwonk
I didn’t realise maverick could be a part-time job. And I certainly didn’t know it could be combined with a job as craven panderer.
Live and learn.
Bender
Population growth = just under 1%/year, not 7.5%.
7.5% is a bigger cost increase even than we’ve seen in health care expenses (government and private), which have been rising about 6%/year. So the average portion of government discretionary spending is rising faster than health care expenses.
So to put it another way, the rise in insurance premiums in 2008 was seen by the left as a national tragedy requiring a fundamental restructuring of such a money-grubbing system which is obviously broken. The increase? 5.5% in 2008, 6.1% in 2007.
Discretionary government spending is rising faster than that.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Fxd.
In a just world Obama’s press aide would get Frum’s job and 4″ of his scalp.
Rick Taylor
While I’m a little pleased to see McCain stick up for what’s right, it’s a tiny payment on the debt he owes in helping bring Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, and the tea party into prominence.
Bender
Hmmm, curious…I think the federal government collects over $6.5B/day in taxes. Where’d that $2.22B number come from? Was it a slow day at the IRS?
Ash Can
@Hunter Gathers: LOL! That picture is so cute. And Frum gets eviscerated in the comments. What’s not to love? :)
Davis X. Machina
@Norwonk:
I know Craven Panderer. I can even remember when they were bought out by Dunder Mifflin.
Chyron HR
Well, that settles that.
RalfW
The Dow is now down 3.5% from its 5 day trading high last Thursday, shedding about 450 points in 5 days. I really wish that 450 point drop could have all come on Monday to actually, y’know, let the f*ckin’ teahadists see what’s at stake (my retirement, to be bluntly selfish).
Looks like CBS Marketwatch wants the jihad to understand:
Default fears pound Street
Dow suffers worst day since June 1; Nasdaq slides 2%
Some Guy
This is redundant with different comments, I know, but yes, double yes, it never fucking stops.
However, this is the only way that some members can be lead to avoid default, if that is possible at all. Republicans have to do this work. Which means, of course, that we are doing no better than praying. But the only people that an astounding proportion of Republicans wil listen too, even about basic faculty matter mind you, is other Reublicans. They have become not a cult, but an epistemological tribe. The only knowledge that counts, even if it replicates what non-Republicans or, heaven forbid, intellectuals think, is that which is voiced by Republicans.
So yes, the fawning is obnoxious, but once some Republican elders start speaking directly about this insanity, it may encourage others to do as well, and that is the only thing that will really stick, if it can stick. Which is a giant fucking IF.
When you are dealing with zealots, affect and identification are the only things that work. Reason and evidence are the tools of dissimulators to the fanatic.
Ash Can
@Martin: And that’s a great picture too (and very nice commentary on that site). How I miss Republicans like Betty Ford.
Davis X. Machina
@RalfW: Go back far enough in the tall grass — or tall pine trees — and you can find people who don’t care if the Dow goes in the toilet because the stock market is full of Joos. Now the Great Ammo Price Spike of ’09 — that got them all worked up enough.
jwb
RalfW: It’s looking like Friday might be market panic day. If it sheds more than 300 tomorrow, I think Friday is going to be wicked bad without good news on the debt ceiling.
Reality Check
Dow down? Dollar down?
Good thing gold is up :)
Norwonk
@Davis X. Machina:
I believe McCain was put in charge of their management training program? Apparently, he taught them everything they know.
Martin
Well, some days we do – days when the bulk of payroll comes in, just as one example. But yesterday we collected a grand total of $89M in corporate income taxes.
jwb
Reality Check: Pathetic. If you are going to be a fucking troll, act like a fucking troll.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Bender @
If the government only cut taxes Bender this whole issue would go away.
Seriously dude, why bother with this blog?
A lot of of are ex-conservatives – as in we got our head of of ass. One thing that experience teaches you is if a conservative quotes a “fact” you know they are lying. You see we all know the viscous circle your tea crazed little fantasy of a “balanced budget” creates – less government spending, less money into the economy, more economic depression, government spending cut again and so on until the US is so pathetic its invaded and conquered by Canada under their Defense Scheme 1.
But please continue posting. You are quite funny and pathetic to watch with your faux maturity.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Reality Check:
Doug, you really need to step up your game.
Amanda in the South Bay
I’m feeling a little guilty, since my July Gi Bill housing allowance will be deposited on Aug 1. Social Security recipients potentially are gonna get screwed.
General Stuck
Well, all I can say, if we end up with some kind spending cuts without raising revenue, that shit sandwich will taste okay while watching the wingnuts ripping each others throat out.
Bloody Bill beats the tribal drum, to warn the old guard, that these tea partiers are shitting on the GOP carpet, and nobody can do anything about it.
Jeebus Bill, what made you think these fulminating psychopaths were republicans? They are a guided missile launched by desperate power hungry goopers and aimed straight at the Golden Goose. Do something my ass. Just bend over and kiss it goodbye.
Now the previous extremists are going to have to get extreme with the even more extremist Frankensteins they invited in for a spot of tea and crumpets. Great
Elliecat
Yevgraf @ 95
As someone who lives in an area where every year more prime farmland gets turned into housing and shopping developments (although ours keep filling up), I’d love to see this too. But when they make those developments, they take off all the good soil and truck it away to sell. What’s left behind is hardly good enough to grow a lawn on. I don’t know if that land can ever be reclaimed for agriculture.
trollhattan
@68.kay – July 27, 2011 | 4:06 pm · Link
Yup, the comments are a little island of sanity. Surprised From left them all there.
The Moar You Know
I love it when Bender pulls statistics from his ass. YoY increases in health care expenses, at least from my desk – where I pay the bills for our company’s health care expenses – would be 14% every year for the last three years. If you factor out Kaiser Permanente, it would be well over 20% per year. Health care costs are killing small business. We pay more for it than we pay for the mortgage on our building – in fact, the only thing that costs us more than health care is employee salaries.
trollhattan
O/T from the are you freaking kidding me? file:
“Climate Activist Tim DeChristopher Given Two-Year Sentence For Derailing Bush Oil Auction”
http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/07/27/280263/climate-activist-tim-dechristopher-given-two-year-sentence/
Tell me again what Don Blankenship’s retirement package was?
les
@Chyron HR:
For the first time in my experience, Bender is sorta not completely wrong or lying, just sorta glossing reality over. 6.5B is estimated 2010 receipts divided by 365; so s/he is moving from abject stupidity to simple minded inaccuracy. Our Bender is learning! Or mouthing a better grade of nitwit talking point.
stinkdaddy
I’m struck by the parallels to professional wrestling. Wait, is that John McCain’s music? Shit, he’s still cutting the same promos as he was four years ago, “Straight talk” catchphrase and all.
les
@Elliecat:
got it in one. and the burbites are always amazed their garden won’t grow in pure clay.
Cris (without an H)
Elliecat
Oh, sure it can. Agriculture has been practiced for what, 10,000 years? Give it another five thousand years, that land will be arable again.
JPL
I haven’t read all the comments but if this hasn’t been mentioned wasn’t it Ailes that coined the term liberal media?
I think it was Ailes and he was a political genius ..
Bender
According to the Daily Treasury Statements, the federal government took in about $2.1B on Thursday, $5.7B on Friday, $11B on Monday, and $2.2B yesterday. For the month, the average is $5B/day. For the fiscal year, it’s $5.8B/day.
So as I suspected, that $2.2B was just a slow day.
Bender
Glossing reality over? You mean, asking a question, then researching the answer and reporting it? Yeah, that’s kind of what I do.
I could forego all the maths and go by the Ball-Juicer Stylebook for argumentation:
“
You’reYour a fuckhead!”“Your a shitbrain retard!”
“Your a racist!”
“Pie!”
Bender
Yes, but what if we told you that it was a fact we were lying? What would you do then, hotshot?
By the way, I just quoted from the Daily Treasury Reports exactly what the tax takings have been. So I guess that was a lie, right? So the Treasury Department is in on it!
I can’t believe they let retards like you into the public library to use the PCs.
OzoneR
From what I’ve been made to understand, because Obama didn’t use the bully pulpit.
Davis X. Machina
@Cris (without an H): Dung. Lots of dung.
Dee Loralei
That Frum thing really kinda irks me, I’m glad his readers are giving him shit for it. That was the women’s world cup soccer finals or semi-finals. I remember Lamh linking to it in the comments of whichever game it was. ( her adoration of the Obama family is adorable, and I concur with it.)So it wasn’t even a particularly timely photo he was bitching about.I can only assume that he was getting shit from his fellow righties about riding them too hard and for not enough Obama bashing. He really had to pull that one out of his ass. And fuck David Frum, that wasn’t the oval office. Hell I’m not even sure it wasn’t in the private residence. Mr Axis of Evil, my President destroyed the US, sounds like those other dickwad villagers who proclaimed about the Clinton, ” they came in and destroyed the place, and it wasn’t their place.”
When the revolution comes, the entire fucking village gets put up against the wall. I say we nuke it from orbit, just to be sure.
Omnes Omnibus
@ Davis X. Machina: What’s brown and sounds like a bell?
A Mom Anon
Bender,is there a link for the numbers you site? I was trying to find those figures a few days ago and didn’t know where to look.
PS Never mind, I was looking at the IRS not the Treasury.It’s not been my best week.
Cris (without an H)
Omnes Omnibus: That reminds me, this is the only riddle I’ve ever made up!
What sounds like a bell and smells like a weed?
Dee Loralei
@A Mom Anon: The link to his numbers are from the dingleberry in his boy panties.
Dee Loralei
@Cris (without an H): a bong?
I made up one: What are they going to call the movie of Bill Gates life?
singfoom
Not that the troll isn’t a troll, but one might find facts at the following address: Treasury Statements
General Stuck
wingnuts dine on their own.
What, you didn’t think the skinny black dude with funny ears wasn’t driving the wingnuts crazy?
Thoughtcrime
Congressional Black Caucus chair states that they will only support a clean debt ceiling vote.
Cleaver says the caucus insists on a clean vote to raise the debt ceiling — the same kind of vote “we’ve done repeatedly since 1917.” Cleaver explained, “we can deal with the deficit questions later, but let’s not send the most powerful nation on the planet into default.” :
http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/07/27/281251/congressional-black-caucus-chair-we-will-only-support-a-clean-debt-ceiling-vote/
jl
Ignore Bender until he provides links or reference and provides enough information to tell what the heck he is talking about.
Bender needs to say whether he is talking about annual growth in expenditure as share of GDP, or absolute or per capita, and if absolute, whether nominal or real dollars, stuff like that, OK? Link the numbers to report so people can check.
Otherwise it is just a numbers blizzard that doesn’t mean anything.
les
@A Mom Anon:
Daily activity here; interesting. Keep in mind, part of the receipt number is employment taxes, part of which may be really part of the debt–they can’t be used for non-SS expenditures unless they’re borrowed from the SS trust fund, but it’s not clear how daily SS collections match up to daily SS disbursements.
trollhattan
@127.JPL – July 27, 2011 | 5:44 pm · Link
Pretty sure we have Nixon to thank for that. Makes a fine bedfellow with his Southern Strategy. Ailes has perfected the trick of attacking “teh media” while being teh media.
Alex S.
Every time the old McCain returns he is a little older.
Cris (without an H)
@Dee Loralei
bingo
I’m dying to know.
jwb
General Stuck: Of course, that’s Bill Kristol making his predictions about what the teabaggers will do, so you should automatically recognize (1) that it is certainly wrong; (2) quite likely, the very opposite of what he says will occur.
Handsome Stranger
“How did we get such a horrible media?”
Our conservative overlords worked tirelessly over several decades to get exactly the kind of news media they wanted. The Watergate scandal and the fall of Nixon taught them that investigative journalism practiced by people who valued factual reporting could not be tolerated.
arguingwithsignposts
@Cris (without an H): Me too! I was going to guess “Blue Screen of Death,” but I got nothing beyond that.
Just Some Fuckhead
@The Moar You Know:
Yeah, a year before my wife had to shut down her company, they eliminated family health care coverage. Small businesses employ half of the private workforce and health insurance costs are a staggering impediment to them. That’s why real health care reform was so desperately needed.
Dee Loralei
@Cris (without an H): DOS Boot.
Don’t groan too loudly, you’ll hurt my feefees.
Martin
@les:
They match up poorly. From what I can tell, the day the SS trust fund bonds clear is the 15th of each month. So we bring in a tiny bit each day in payroll taxes, some more once per week, and a fuckton on the 15th. By comparison we pay out a tiny bit each day, and 1/4 each week (Wed).
The system has always assumed we had enough cash reserves floating around, or enough room in the debt ceiling to issue some short-term bonds to get us to the next SS payday.
The first of the month is a day when a lot of money comes in and WAY more money goes out, so next Monday is when most of the reserves that don’t go out today will vanish. On the 3rd, SS needs to go out but the trust fund bonds don’t mature until the 15th, so we’re fucked for 12 days, then we have a bit of money, then we’re fucked again.
Cris (without an H)
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Thoughtcrime
John Waters once said Russ Meyers’ autobiographical project should have been titled BERLIN ALEXANDERTITS.
Tonal Crow
@Handsome Stranger:
Exactly. And isn’t it like, you know, 30 years past time that we began a similar project to shape the media and Democratic rhetoric, to plant the seeds for our future?
Old Man McCain
GET OFF MY LAWN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bender
@The Moar You Know:
I’m virtually the ONLY person on this fact-free blog who ever sources anything, including the front-pagers. Of course, I’m the only one who uses numbers and stuff instead of “PIE!”
At the risk of noting that musings from your desk are less like statistics and more “pulling things from out of your ass,” I will say:
Sorry, I accidentally deleted the sentence where I explained that I used all 2007-2009 stats to eliminate the “ObamaCare effect.” After all, the point was that government NDDS is rising faster than health care costs before the pre-ObamaCare outrage.
The stats vary by bits depending on the source (imagine!), but on per capita spending, they are summed up by this:
This checks out with the Wiki (FWIW) that shows 6% increase between 2006-2007 and a 5.3% increase between 2007-2008. Exactly as I said.
On insurance premiums:
And from the President’s own report:
So outrage by the left and the media (but I repeat myself) over a 5.5% (and falling)increase in insurance premiums and 6% rise in medical spending was cause for ramming through ObamaCare over the objections of 63% of the people.
But outrage over a 7.5% increase in government spending is to be dismissed as teabaggers whining about population growth and aging? (And why wasn’t this “population aging” argument used by the left to explain away the rise in insurance premiums? Oh, because shut up.)
Democrats can’t even agree to cut the growth of these programs by a few %? We are well and truly boned.
El Cid
__
No, because any such effort to do so will be hated, particularly by those who think such media should mainly be about electoral organizing for the Democratic Party itself, but with all the excitement and creativity of PBS’ Newshour.
Air America sucked because it was awful, though apparently a lot of people listened and in a shitload of areas was the only alternative, so, fuck that.
Now I’m learning that apparently MSNBC is too traitorous now having been filled with such radical leftist firebaggers as Rachel Maddow, so maybe instead we can build new networks around such exciting figures as Lawrence O’Donnell.
Bender
Yep, we chose Dan Rather, Andrea Mitchell, Chrissy Tingles, Keith Olbermann and the dozen or so “journalists” who left their reporting gigs to shill professionally for President Obama, after doing it for so long for free.
MojoQuestor
Dee Loralei
lol :)
Bender
I’d ask you Ball-Juicers to source everything you assert (including front-pagers), but it’s such a fact-free “I-feel-it-so-it’s-true” blog that you don’t use many statistics to begin with.
I mean, what stats are you guys supposed to use during the debt debate? Everything’s fine? There’s plenty of money? Our grandkids will have enough money to pay it for us? Just tax everyone at 66% and watch the debt melt away?
Of course not. So you whine about “insane” Republicans and their “stupid” statistics. I get it. What else can you do?
Tonal Crow
@El Cid (157): Christ on a crutch made of pieces of the Knights’ Templar shattered femurs do I hope that that’s snark.
Ron
@kwAwk: The GOP will make it an all or nothing package. Either all the Bush tax cuts are extended or none of them, just like last time. So either the dems have to vote middle class tax increases and re-instituting the marriage penalty or keep the tax cuts for the rich. We’re basically fucked.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Bender:
Sure.. why not? Why am I supposed to be worked up more now than the last time the debt ceiling was raised? Because Republicans want to extract maximum political benefit? That’s not enough for me.
Samara Morgan
@Tonal Crow
“freed” market in action.
you can’t sell media to just the educated and three digits and make a profit– there aren’t enough of them.
Lidia
@Tonal Crow, “the Fed” is not a federal agency. It is a private consortium of banks which lends Federal Reserve Notes to the USG.
albertchampion
long before gillette, there was this blade.
it fell from a great height. and it eliminated monsters.
it performed in a place now known as the place de la concorde. but, in the days when it was removing the gangsters, it was known as the place de la revolution.
aux bastille, mes amis.