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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Sound and Fury

Sound and Fury

by John Cole|  August 14, 20117:15 pm| 168 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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This won’t matter:

As the economy worsens, President Obama and his senior aides are considering whether to adopt a more combative approach on economic issues, seeking to highlight substantive differences with Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail rather than continuing to pursue elusive compromises, advisers to the president say.

Nothing is going to make it through the Republican House, so your options are do nothing quietly (compromise), do nothing loudly and hope it helps change the political dynamic. The debt limit has lifted, so there seems to be very little reason to even attempt to cooperate with Republicans. Just go on the offensive and let them have it.

Regardless, nothing will be done to actually help the economy.

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Reader Interactions

168Comments

  1. 1.

    gogol's wife

    August 14, 2011 at 7:18 pm

    Well, I hope eemom sees this. She seems to think this approach will accomplish something. I don’t, but if it helps him get reelected I’m happy.

  2. 2.

    Mustang Bobby

    August 14, 2011 at 7:23 pm

    Well, according to all the Very Serious People, the presidential campaign officially started yesterday, so getting anything done between now and January 2013 is officially shot to hell. Stock up on the popcorn and the barf bags.

  3. 3.

    JPL

    August 14, 2011 at 7:23 pm

    An anonymous (aka Rove) Obama person said Romney was bad and the news ran with it for days. If he goes on the offensive he is an angry black person and if he doesn’t he’s a wimp. Personally I’d say go for it. He might lose but he goes down fighting.. To the repubs they would love to destroy the country so they could save the rich folks from their inevitable downfall, I say go for it and enjoy stepping over the homeless on the streets.

  4. 4.

    Lolis

    August 14, 2011 at 7:25 pm

    The only good thing is the Congressional ballot has flipped in a major way in favor of Democrats. We need to do everything we can to expand it and make it stick till November 2012. I don’t just want Obama to win I want more Senate seats (which may be impossible) and I want the House back. I am not sure if Obama will be willing to run a Harry Reid-style campaign next year, but he may need to. I wonder how a really negative race will affect downticket votes on both sides.

  5. 5.

    JPL

    August 14, 2011 at 7:26 pm

    After reading my comment I must admit that although I refrained from using my favorite word, it did come across on the negative side. I listened to Bachmann today preach about values, she knows nothing about real values. (I’m still refraining btw)

  6. 6.

    LosGatosCA

    August 14, 2011 at 7:30 pm

    Oddly, it sounds like their choices, as they see them, are:

    Do we fiddle?

    Or

    Rearrange the deck chairs?

    Plus: bring marshmallows or curse the godless iceberg.

    I’m good with either choice in either style.

    Wake me in 2020 when someone starts to get serious.

  7. 7.

    Elie

    August 14, 2011 at 7:33 pm

    @Mustang Bobby:

    LOL

    Stock up on the popcorn and the barf bags.

    Actually, this is the slogan for the next year and a half — the agony and the ecstacy…

  8. 8.

    eemom

    August 14, 2011 at 7:38 pm

    [[headdesk]]

  9. 9.

    General Stuck

    August 14, 2011 at 7:40 pm

    Obama is mulling this over, apparently this weekend at Camp David, or somewhere else. I’ve never thought Obama has thought he could get a grand bargain type deal with large spending cuts with a tax hike attached to them. And it was mostly political jujitsu offering such a plan to the wingers in the first place, and apparently they are going to keep doing this. I mean why not? It is dangling in front of the wingers that which they demagogue for austerity, but with a poison pill they can never swallow with GOP politics as they are. The same with him pushing the SS tax holiday, for extending that, that is maybe the quickest stimulus for government spending that there is, being spent immediately into the economy, and at once helps the poorest among us, and when the wingnuts block that, it shines the light on the fact that wingnuts are only for cutting taxes for the rich.

    Bad politics, but feelgood politics going whooly on the repubs. Obama is doing it right, to define the GOP on economic matters, on his terms, and the polls show it more and more every day. Though Obama will get a nay on any given day’s polling right now, because he is the president, and that is the way that is, and always has been. But you look under the hood, and the public is pissed at the wingers in a pretty profound way, and get that this mess was inherited from the republicans they voted into power the past 30 years. That makes a difference in a pol campaign for reelection, when the voting time arrives.

    From what I gather the WH, is going with a strategy of proposing a lot of smaller bills in staccato the next year or so, and the wingers will say no, because it doesn’t help their real base, the wealthy. And continues to draw clear lines of distinction between Obama and the dem way, and the wingnut way.

    Yea, Obama could switch to liberal revival mode, and praise the liberal jeevus being thwarted by the devil republicans, but most of his voters, and potential voters generally don’t like sermons on the mount. They like to see plans put forth by flesh and blood dems, and can get their thinking cleared up when the wingers reject these plans, even though a cursory exam makes it look like just what they want. It’s about credibility, that is the currency, and faith without works is dead. Praise be pothead jeevus, let’s all hold hands and dance and feel the spirit move us to the land of milk and funny.

    Sorry, carried away a bit.

  10. 10.

    JenJen

    August 14, 2011 at 7:40 pm

    So the “plan” is to do nothing or do just a teensy little bit? Because the White House is concerned voters won’t reward “bold proposals”?

    Yay. Imma have another whiskey sour.

  11. 11.

    Gustopher

    August 14, 2011 at 7:40 pm

    I prefer fiddling to rearranging deck chairs. I’d rather be sitting in a deck chair listening to some nice fiddling.

  12. 12.

    Rhoda

    August 14, 2011 at 7:42 pm

    They’re prepping a narrative, IMO.

    The campaign has started and in pushing this story; they are framing the way all the campaign stories come out this week during the bus tour. This is how you put a story in the paper now; you spoon food it to them in drips and drabs.

  13. 13.

    boss bitch

    August 14, 2011 at 7:43 pm

    What is the rush to present something bid bold and going no where when the election is more than a year away? who’s going to remember how HARD he fought for this so-called bill? For the next few months Dems/Obama should focus on the super committee and any routine housekeeping. Once the GOP starts to solidify around a candidate or as we get closer to the general, THEN Obama’s team can go bold. Whatever that means.

  14. 14.

    Caz

    August 14, 2011 at 7:44 pm

    The D’s controlled the entire gov’t for two years and didn’t do anything except ram through a massively unpopular and unconstitutional health care law. No budget, no debt ceiling raise, no job-creating bills.

    Now that they have lost the House and have to compromise with R’s to get anything done, they are complaining that the R’s won’t help fix the country. What a bunch of incompetent cowards.

    And I’m no big fan of the GOP, but at least they have a minority of members who are serious about fixing our fiscal mess.

    We’ll just have to wait until some GOP nominee beats Obama to get anything productive done.

  15. 15.

    res ipsa loquitur

    August 14, 2011 at 7:45 pm

    Just go on the offensive and let them have it.

    Amen!

  16. 16.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    August 14, 2011 at 7:46 pm

    @Caz: Go fuck yourself on this fine sunday.

  17. 17.

    Emma

    August 14, 2011 at 7:46 pm

    @Rhoda: Yeah, I think so too. They know they can’t trust the media, so they’re doing this very slowly and carefully.

  18. 18.

    Jenny

    August 14, 2011 at 7:47 pm

    Just go on the offensive and let them have it.

    Problem is the kids [indies] don’t like when the parents fight, even when one is an abusive drunk, gambling away the rent money.

  19. 19.

    Emma

    August 14, 2011 at 7:47 pm

    @Caz: You people really inhabit a complete other reality, don’t you?

  20. 20.

    dexwood

    August 14, 2011 at 7:51 pm

    @JenJen:
    I going with straight whiskey, i feel sour enough…

  21. 21.

    Trurl

    August 14, 2011 at 7:51 pm

    Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Plouffe, and his chief of staff, William M. Daley, want him to maintain a pragmatic strategy of appealing to independent voters by advocating ideas that can pass Congress, even if they may not have much economic impact.

    Even if they may not have much economic impact.

    “Trying to look busy” is the Obama administration’s idea of pragmatism.

  22. 22.

    hildebrand

    August 14, 2011 at 7:52 pm

    @Caz: Good lord, but you are the most fabulous of idiots. Such blatant obliviousness to what actually happened is really quite a talent. Do you rent yourself for parties?

  23. 23.

    JenJen

    August 14, 2011 at 7:52 pm

    @Caz: Oh, dear. I’d make you a whiskey sour, but that “And I’m no big fan of the GOP, but at least they have a minority of members who are serious about fixing our fiscal mess” nonsense makes me think you’re well past the legal limit and already slurring and swaying.

    @dexwood: Good one!!

  24. 24.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 7:53 pm

    @Caz:

    No budget, no debt ceiling raise, no job-creating bills.

    They passed a budget, they raised the debt ceiling multiple times, and they funded high-speed rail construction that created 9,000 jobs here in New York because the people of Florida and Ohio didn’t want them.

  25. 25.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 7:54 pm

    @Trurl:

    “Trying to look busy” is the Obama administration’s idea of pragmatism.

    I assume you think this is a bad thing, I have no idea why.

  26. 26.

    hildebrand

    August 14, 2011 at 7:55 pm

    @Trurl: Ooh, its a double-header – Caz and Trurl together in the most splendiferous wanktacular ever!

  27. 27.

    Ozymandias, King of Ants

    August 14, 2011 at 7:55 pm

    @Trurl: Does anyone else find it peculiar that the quote you pulled refers to a sitting President as “Mr.”?

  28. 28.

    Jenny

    August 14, 2011 at 7:56 pm

    @JenJen:

    voters won’t reward “bold proposals”?

    In general, voters don’t.

    Progressive do. But moderates and indies are really nervous nellys. If you throw the ball too deep they crap their pants. They’re like Ohio St. fans, they prefer ball control to high octane passing attacks or even the risky wishbone attack.

  29. 29.

    hildebrand

    August 14, 2011 at 7:57 pm

    This thread will only be complete if Reality Check checks in soon.

  30. 30.

    AA+ Bonds

    August 14, 2011 at 7:58 pm

    If the President begins to aggressively present spending as a way to bring down unemployment, it may very well help the economy in the long run, in that we may yet be able to save it.

  31. 31.

    hildebrand

    August 14, 2011 at 7:58 pm

    @Ozymandias, King of Ants: Its because he can’t spell ‘boy’.

  32. 32.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 14, 2011 at 8:02 pm

    @General Stuck:

    I’ve never thought Obama has thought he could get a grand bargain type deal with large spending cuts with a tax hike attached to them.

    I disagree. I think he saw an opening when there were those votes to end some subsidies a few months back, and there was growing resistance to the way oil companies keep getting perverse incentives, etc. So the Go Big play was to get Republicans to admit that they cared about deficits and debts, then parlay that into a “tax reform” plan that cuts “corporate welfare” and other things that rich people and businesses capitalize on to get out of paying taxes _and_ at the same time further ratchets down individual tax rates for people making $250K and under. We may yet see some of that emerge from the Super-Congress, because IIRC it was included in Bowles-Simpson. The grand bargain is to get revenue but not through “tax hikes” — through the back door instead, by playing around with what Obama called at one point “expenditures in the tax code.”

  33. 33.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 14, 2011 at 8:02 pm

    @Ozymandias, King of Ants: The Economist always uses that form of address for a US President. I am not saying the quotation is from the Economist, just that it is not necessarily a disrespectful thing.

  34. 34.

    burnspbesq

    August 14, 2011 at 8:03 pm

    @Caz:

    massively unpopular and unconstitutional health care law

    Try living in this universe for a while. Or try reading some rational commentary on the Eleventh Circuit’s opinion. You can start here.

    http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/08/why-11th-circuits-opinion-self.html

  35. 35.

    Yutsano

    August 14, 2011 at 8:07 pm

    @burnspbesq: You’re attempting to reason with a troll. You that bored?

  36. 36.

    Elie

    August 14, 2011 at 8:08 pm

    @General Stuck:

    Frame this:

    Yea, Obama could switch to liberal revival mode, and praise the liberal jeevus being thwarted by the devil republicans, but most of his voters, and potential voters generally don’t like sermons on the mount. They like to see plans put forth by flesh and blood dems, and can get their thinking cleared up when the wingers reject these plans, even though a cursory exam makes it look like just what they want. It’s about credibility, that is the currency, and faith without works is dead

  37. 37.

    JenJen

    August 14, 2011 at 8:08 pm

    @Jenny: I realize that, so to be more clear, I guess I’m in the “do the right thing” camp, not the “do the weak-ass thing that does little to grow the economy but is just uncontroversial enough that the voters might reward you for it” camp.

    Spot-on about Buckeye fans.

  38. 38.

    Jenny

    August 14, 2011 at 8:09 pm

    For all you guys who love fighting, explain Democratic Iowa voters.

    Iowa Democrats are famous for punishing Democratic candidates who launch attacks.

    In 2004, Howard Dean was leading the Iowa Caucus and he got into a war with Gephardt who was running a second. Iowa Democrats got turned off and punished both. Dean lost his lead and finished a distant third. So did Gephardt, who finished fourth.

    Fast forward to 2008. Edwards and Hillary were punching each other in the debates. Iowa Democrats responded by saying, “no, we’ll go for the one who isn’t yelling”.

    Voting: How does that work?

  39. 39.

    aisce

    August 14, 2011 at 8:10 pm

    @ ozymandias, hildebrand

    i assume you two spectacular dumbasses have never heard of the new york times. or its style that it’s been using for a century now.

    they’re such racists not to change it for the first black president.

  40. 40.

    Ozymandias, King of Ants

    August 14, 2011 at 8:10 pm

    @hildebrand: And it’s from the NYT. Wow.

  41. 41.

    Norwonk

    August 14, 2011 at 8:12 pm

    If Obama can just sit really still for a year, people may forget who he is. And then he can run as the virgin outsider who is going to change the way Washington works.

  42. 42.

    burnspbesq

    August 14, 2011 at 8:12 pm

    @Yutsano:

    “I’m so bored with the U-S-A.”

    But you knew that was coming.

    Caz may be a troll, but he/she isn’t stupid. I’m willing to try and reason with him/her occasionally. Gotta keep hope alive, yanno.

  43. 43.

    Baud

    August 14, 2011 at 8:13 pm

    @Ozymandias, King of Ants: I believe Mr. is standard NYT style when referring to the president (or any male official). I don’t think it’s a new thing.

    Edit: I believe other newspapers like WaPo don’t use any designation, just “Obama.”

  44. 44.

    Yutsano

    August 14, 2011 at 8:15 pm

    @burnspbesq: Well have fun. I done filled my troll sparring quota for the quarter. And Caz seems too true believer in the faith of Rand to be dissuaded.

  45. 45.

    Jenny

    August 14, 2011 at 8:15 pm

    @JenJen: But “do the right thing” isn’t part of the equation, as the wingers won’t pass anything he proposes.

    Obviously, if they passed whatever he proposed, I would be with you in calling for the best measure. But they won’t.

    So you’re left with “what works politically”.

  46. 46.

    aisce

    August 14, 2011 at 8:15 pm

    i can’t wait to hear from stuck how this place is such a nasty firebagger blog when we have not one, but two people who think the new york times is racist for referring to people as mr./mrs. in the body text of their articles.

    that might be the obot gold standard. i’m not sure it can be topped.

  47. 47.

    TK421

    August 14, 2011 at 8:19 pm

    Nothing is going to make it through the Republican House, so your options are do nothing quietly (compromise), or do nothing loudly and hope it helps change the political dynamic.

    Not even close to true.

    Here’s what I would do if I were president:

    1) Destroy HAMP and start over. Create an effective program in its place that will actually help homeowners, by lowering the principal on their mortgages with direct payments. There are tens of billions of dollars left in the HAMP fund—money the president needs no one’s permission to spend.

    2) Meanwhile, order Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to refinance more mortgages, borrowing if necessary, to get more homeowners above water. The president needs no one’s permission to do this.

    3) There is between $100 billion and $300 billion left in TARP, depending on whether you count money spent or money promised. The president can spend this money any way he wants (there is more than enough to boost the economy in productive ways; Cash for Clunkers only cost $3 billion).

    4) The Federal Reserve took trillions in worthless assets off the hands of big banks and is holding it now. It could put these assets (“toxic waste”) on the open market and force banks to match their own toxic waste to the market value. This would ruin them. Then the FDIC takes them over, pink-slips their executives, breaks them up so they aren’t too big to fail and gets them lending again.

    5) Use quantitative easing to take bad risk off of working people’s hands. The president needs no one’s permission to do this. If any member of the Federal Reserve refuses to go along, the president can legally fire them for cause and replace them with a recess appointment.

    6) Last year Congress approved a $30 billion fund to loan directly to small businesses to stimulate hiring. Almost none of that money has been spent, thanks to foot-dragging by the Treasury department. Treasury answers to the president, who needs no one’s permission to kick this program into high gear.

    People who answer with “but the media would say bad things about him!” will not be dignified with a response.

  48. 48.

    Jeffro

    August 14, 2011 at 8:20 pm

    Obama is going to just keep on fundraising, making the speeches and doing the standard stuff, while the Rs get quite silly (both towards him and each other).

    Remember: if 2012 becomes a referendum on Obama (regardless of all the great things that have happened, that he helped make happen), then the crappy economy makes his re-election a 50-50 proposition at best. If 2012 is a choice election, which oddly enough it looks like it will be (mostly due to the incredibly bad candidates and positions on the R side), then he should do pretty well.

    Think of it this way: Huntsman/Daniels 2012 would have made it a referendum on Obama. Perry/Bachman 2012 will make it a choice election, and that’s almost enough to get me back into church.

  49. 49.

    Jenny

    August 14, 2011 at 8:20 pm

    The Democrats currently hold a 7 point advantage in the generic Congressional ballot.

    A year ago as this very time, the wingers held a 7 point advantage.

    That’s a 14 point switch in 12 months.

    Keep pushing it at an even pace. Turtle always wins.

  50. 50.

    hildebrand

    August 14, 2011 at 8:20 pm

    @Ozymandias, King of Ants: Yep.

    Good lord, folks, we are not unaware of such usage. The question is whether or not you think, with Trurl’s history around these parts, that this cretin was actually attempting to be journalistically polite. Somehow, I doubt this was the case. But by all means, if by jumping on us you get your exercise (or get exercised) for the day, go for it!

    I love Sunday afternoon threads. They are just so spiffy.

  51. 51.

    General Stuck

    August 14, 2011 at 8:21 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    I doubt he thought it was certain the wingers would reject such a plan, but suspect he knows full well the blasphemy for repubs voting for a tax hike of any kind. Something they have not done since the 80’s and the Grover pledge. If Obama did think that was a serious chance that would happen, then his wishes were beyond present pol realities.

    And that was born out by the GOP rejection of such a plan, at least with enough GOP votes to pass it. And while you could be right with Obama’s original thinking, I don’t think the theory holds up now, going forward, for dems pushing such a thing as that grand bargain for any other reason than a hammer to use on the wingers for being hypocrites, and obligatory troll protection from the tax and spend liberal charge, and to out the wingers for their servile relationship to the rich.

    The supercommittee is a no more than a constructed pol cage for an electioneering cage match, imo. The GOP, in an election season is not going to support one nickel of tax increase, either directly or indirectly, and dems are not going to make serious cuts in dem programs without those tax increases. So we remain where we have always been, on these issues. no where. Neither party can afford to surrender their respective Holy Grails with their bases at this time. but both parties can point and shout at the other which is the natural state of politics in this country.

  52. 52.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 8:21 pm

    @Jenny:

    Iowa Democrats are famous for punishing Democratic candidates who launch attacks.

    this is often true of Democrats everywhere.

    Every Democrat I know has a different set of beliefs. Some thing we need more funding in infrastructure to create jobs, others think that’s just a pipe dream waste of money cause the jobs are temporary. Some think we need more taxes, other think tax cuts. It’s amazing just how no one can unite under one platform.

    Hell, I was at a gathering last week when one tea party nut complained Obama was “trying to be a celebrity” and my Democratic friends are all like “yeah, you’re right”

    whaa?

    And they take pride in that debate, as if not having a set list of unbreakable principles is a bad thing.

  53. 53.

    JenJen

    August 14, 2011 at 8:22 pm

    @Jenny: I would opine that doing the right thing and daring the GOP to pass it might work politically. God knows nothing else has. The polls you site about the generic Congressional ballot seem to affirm that the American people support some bold action right now.

    I’m a pragmatist and about as O-bot as it gets, but I’m losing my religion.

  54. 54.

    TK421

    August 14, 2011 at 8:22 pm

    @OzoneR:

    they raised the debt ceiling multiple times

    But not enough times, obviously.

    They should have eliminated the debt ceiling completely. It’s a law long past its time, like one of those laws banning women from wearing pants on Sunday. We were still on the gold standard when it was passed, for goodness’ sake.

  55. 55.

    LosGatosCA

    August 14, 2011 at 8:22 pm

    And I’m no big fan of the GOP, but at least they have a minority of members who are serious about fixing our fiscal mess.

    The words GOP, fiscal, serious cannot be used in the same sentence except when one is performing a Triple Lindy.

  56. 56.

    Jenny

    August 14, 2011 at 8:22 pm

    @Jeffro: Hear, hear.

  57. 57.

    Kiril

    August 14, 2011 at 8:23 pm

    @Baud: I think it actually started with George Washington, by his choice, which then became standard. So yeah, it pre-dates Obama. For what it’s worth, Republicans used to get on me when I referred to “Mr. Bush” in my articles back in the day.

  58. 58.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 8:25 pm

    @TK421:

    They should have eliminated the debt ceiling completely.

    Why would they have eliminated the debt ceiling if raising had never been a problem before?

  59. 59.

    Corner Stone

    August 14, 2011 at 8:26 pm

    @OzoneR:

    Hell, I was at a gathering last week when one tea party nut complained Obama was “trying to be a celebrity” and my Democratic friends are all like “yeah, you’re right”

    Hold on, let me repeat that…

    Hell, I was at a gathering last week when one tea party nut complained Obama was “trying to be a celebrity” and my Democratic friends are all like “yeah, you’re right”

    This never happened.

  60. 60.

    Baud

    August 14, 2011 at 8:26 pm

    @Kiril: I think you’re right about the usage dating back to Washington. He didn’t want the presidency to be adorned with titles of nobility.

  61. 61.

    Baud

    August 14, 2011 at 8:27 pm

    @Jeffro: Almost?

  62. 62.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 8:27 pm

    @JenJen:

    The polls you site about the generic Congressional ballot seem to affirm that the American people support some bold action right now.

    They do? I’d think the opposite. The GOP has endorsed some “bold action,” wrong “bold action,” but bold nevertheless, it’s the Democrats who have opposed it.

    The party that hasn’t proposed any bold action is suddenly winning the generic ballot? Seems to me the public is endorsing “don’t fuck with anything”

  63. 63.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 8:28 pm

    @Corner Stone: If you’re not going to ignore me like I asked, prove it or shut up

  64. 64.

    Corner Stone

    August 14, 2011 at 8:30 pm

    @OzoneR: Here’s the deal Nick. You comment here, other people get to comment on your bullshit.
    Don’t like it?

  65. 65.

    TK421

    August 14, 2011 at 8:32 pm

    @OzoneR:

    Why would they have eliminated the debt ceiling if raising had never been a problem before?

    Because it’s a stupid law, and because it was likely that if Republicans got the chance they would use it to hold the country hostage.

    Sure, the ceiling was raised with little trouble 80-some times. So why have it? “The government can’t spend more than this much money–unless it wants to!” That’s some great law, huh?

  66. 66.

    Jeffro

    August 14, 2011 at 8:33 pm

    @JenJen: Pragmatism’s not something you can just give up, you know. Says so right in the manual.

  67. 67.

    quaker in a basement

    August 14, 2011 at 8:34 pm

    Keep making Boehner shoot down jobs legislation.

    Again and again and again.

  68. 68.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    August 14, 2011 at 8:38 pm

    Shorter @General Stuck:

    Show it, don’t say it.

  69. 69.

    JPL

    August 14, 2011 at 8:40 pm

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred): OMG.. I love you. Concise and to the point.

  70. 70.

    burnspbesq

    August 14, 2011 at 8:40 pm

    @TK 421:

    Wow. Imperial Presidency much? Are you David Addington in drag?

    Alternatively, if you think there is statutory authority for what you’re suggesting, let’s have some citations.

  71. 71.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 8:41 pm

    @Corner Stone: I get to ask you. Fuckhead, to prove it or shut up.

  72. 72.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 8:42 pm

    @TK421:

    Because it’s a stupid law, and because it was likely that if Republicans got the chance they would use it to hold the country hostage.

    Monday Morning Quarterbacking much?

    Did anyone really think the Republicans would use it hold the country hostage? Even earlier the year most of you liberal bloggers said they’d never vote not to raise it.

  73. 73.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 14, 2011 at 8:43 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Are you David Addington in drag?

    ::shudder::

  74. 74.

    Yutsano

    August 14, 2011 at 8:44 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Brain bleach?

  75. 75.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 14, 2011 at 8:45 pm

    @Yutsano: Please. Why would someone say something like that? It is just cruel.

  76. 76.

    Jeffro

    August 14, 2011 at 8:45 pm

    @Baud: Yeah, almost. In the best of all possible worlds, Obama would be running against Palin/Trump 2012. But you go into an election with the opponent you have, not the opponent you choose to have, right? =)

    Out of the potential candidates and tickets that are coming together on the R side, we could do a lot worse than Perry/Bachman (or more likely, Perry/Rubio or Perry/Haley). Takes the focus off the economy, turns off the independents, and like I said, makes it a choice election.

    I still say Obama 51.5% PV and around 300 EVs on Election Night.

  77. 77.

    Lolis

    August 14, 2011 at 8:48 pm

    @OzoneR:

    I agree with you that Democrats suck. In our own worlds we frequently roll over for psycho teabaggers then we want President Obama to stand firm. It is pretty funny when you think about it.

  78. 78.

    Baud

    August 14, 2011 at 8:48 pm

    @Jeffro: I guess I was confused about what you initially meant. Too early for predictions for me.

  79. 79.

    Yutsano

    August 14, 2011 at 8:49 pm

    @Jeffro:

    I still say Obama 51.5% PV and around 300 EVs on Election Night.

    At least as of right now, Obama beats Perry…in Texas. So I’m not quite in the total despair frame of mind just yet.

    @Omnes Omnibus: And from a fellow legal professional no less. Whatever happened to professional courtesy?

  80. 80.

    Corner Stone

    August 14, 2011 at 8:49 pm

    @OzoneR:

    Did anyone really think the Republicans would use it hold the country hostage? Even earlier the year most of you liberal bloggers said they’d never vote not to raise it.

    Ummm, yeah you moran. People across the blogosphere were wondering why the hell the debt limit wasn’t part of the Dec 2010 The Deal.

  81. 81.

    Lolis

    August 14, 2011 at 8:51 pm

    @LosGatosCA:

    Especially when the teabaggers (with very few exceptions) are adamantly against any defense cuts and actually increased the defense budget last year.

  82. 82.

    TK421

    August 14, 2011 at 8:51 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Wow. Imperial Presidency much? Are you David Addington in drag?

    Please. Those are all programs that have either been already passed by Congress or would execute existing lawful authority. The president runs the Treasury department. Treasury is supposed to do things to help this country, not sit around twiddling its thumbs while the nation erodes.

    What’s “imperial” about actually spending money that Congress has allocated? There’s no reason not to spend every penny of TARP, every penny of HAMP, every penny of the Small Business Lending Fund. And anyone who could spend that, but does not, and goes on to complain that there’s “nothing they can do” has no credibility with me.

  83. 83.

    Baud

    August 14, 2011 at 8:52 pm

    @Corner Stone: I know this isn’t the conventional wisdom, but I’m glad it wasn’t part of the Dec. 2010 deal (if it was even possible). Chiefly because I don’t think they would reached a two-year deal at that time, so we’d probably have been facing the debt hostage crises in the midst of election season.

  84. 84.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 8:53 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    People across the blogosphere were wondering why the hell the debt limit wasn’t part of the Dec 2010 The Deal.

    yeah, seven months after the fact.

    But that’s not the point, I was responding to the idea that the Democrats should have repealed the debt ceiling, not raised it in December, but raising it in December doesn’t necessarily mean we wouldn’t be having this fight before 2012 anyway, unless you think they could’ve gotten a two year extension

  85. 85.

    marginalized for stating documented facts

    August 14, 2011 at 8:54 pm

    Shorter General stuck:

    The best thing the administration can do is abandon support for struggling households now so Obama can get reelected and reduce social insurance programs that help struggling households.

    We’ll see how well that works out in November 2012, buckaroo.

  86. 86.

    JPL

    August 14, 2011 at 8:55 pm

    Am I the only one who thinks that if the economy is in the gutter, whether or not the repubs policies are to blame, that any repub could win including bachmann? MSM is not our friend.

  87. 87.

    Baud

    August 14, 2011 at 8:56 pm

    @marginalized for stating documented facts: That’s not shorter General Stuck. I think you’ve misinterpreted the reason you’ve been marginalized.

  88. 88.

    Corner Stone

    August 14, 2011 at 8:56 pm

    @OzoneR: God you’re a tedious lying little fuck.
    No, not seven months after. Not today or yesterday, or in July you garbage time motherfucker.
    Real people, in real time, were asking why the debt limit wasn’t even being addressed.

    ETA, I’m going to start waiting until the editing window is over for your lying posts so you can’t go back and edit them to suit a different argument.

  89. 89.

    JPL

    August 14, 2011 at 8:58 pm

    @marginalized for stating documented facts: link please cuz i can’t find that comment…

  90. 90.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 8:58 pm

    @Corner Stone: uh huh, yeah, I’m sure they did, all over the blogsphere, like you say, all over the place, that they should raise the debt ceiling in the December deal they all opposed.

  91. 91.

    Baud

    August 14, 2011 at 8:58 pm

    @JPL: Any Republican can always win, regardless of the economy, and should be taken seriously.

  92. 92.

    Yutsano

    August 14, 2011 at 8:59 pm

    @marginalized for stating documented facts: Sound a little more gleeful about that copulator of rodentia.

    @JPL: I have a fantastic one my mom made me last time I was visiting but I’d have to call her for it and I’m making a store run right now. But I’ll see what I can do when I get back. It involves herbes de Provence. And it was magical.

  93. 93.

    JPL

    August 14, 2011 at 8:59 pm

    @Corner Stone: ot..weren’t you talking about grilled pork tenderloin.. do you have a recipe because i have company coming..

  94. 94.

    JPL

    August 14, 2011 at 9:01 pm

    @Yutsano: so does that mean there is no link? He could go on Rush though because he sure does know how to paraphrase in the way rush likes.

  95. 95.

    aisce

    August 14, 2011 at 9:02 pm

    @ hildebrand

    Good lord, folks, we are not unaware of such usage. The question is whether or not you think, with Trurl’s history around these parts, that this cretin was actually attempting to be journalistically polite.

    so, sticking with the unrepentant idiot schtick?

    thurl or trurl or whatever the fuck his name is didn’t write what was in that blockquote. this has nothing to do with him or his history. it came from a nyt article this morning.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/us/politics/14econ.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hp

    unbelievable.

  96. 96.

    Jeffro

    August 14, 2011 at 9:05 pm

    Whoops…I think I just responded to myself.
    Thank you, edit button!

  97. 97.

    TK421

    August 14, 2011 at 9:07 pm

    @marginalized for stating documented facts:

    The sad thing is, even if it gets him re-elected all we have to look forward to is more deficit-cutting and entitlement changes.

  98. 98.

    Corner Stone

    August 14, 2011 at 9:08 pm

    @JPL:

    ot..weren’t you talking about grilled pork tenderloin.. do you have a recipe because i have company coming..

    No, sorry. The last thing I made was chopped beef steak, creamy mashed potatoes and brown mushroom gravy.
    Don’t have anything off the top of my head.

    Usually, I will fillet it open, lay some herbs, butter and garlic cloves inside, tie it up, roll it in a salt and herb crust rub, grill on high over all sides, then stick in the oven on 450 or so to finish.

  99. 99.

    JPL

    August 14, 2011 at 9:08 pm

    @OzoneR: I have friends who discount the republicans and I don’t think they are aware of this possibility. Turnout is key and imo,, the President needs to give them a reason to turn out.

  100. 100.

    marginalized for stating documented facts

    August 14, 2011 at 9:09 pm

    @Baud:

    That’s not shorter General Stuck.

    Sure it is. Like a typical obot, you’re just lying.

    General Stuck supports Obama’s current economic policies. What are Obama’s current economic policies?

    Let’s look at the New York Times:

    Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, David Plouffe, and his chief of staff, William M. Daley, want him to maintain a pragmatic strategy of appealing to independent voters by advocating ideas that can pass Congress, even if they may not have much economic impact. These include free trade agreements and improved patent protections for inventors.

    But others, including Gene Sperling, Mr. Obama’s chief economic adviser [argue] for bigger ideas like tax incentives for businesses that hire more workers…

    Source: “White House Debates Fight on Economy,” New York Times, Binyamin Applebaum and Helene Cooper, 13 August 2011.

    Yup, more free trade, or bigger tax breaks for businesses. That’s the big debate about the economy inside the Obama administration right now.

    Globalized free trade is destroying the American middle class, and tax breaks for businesses are also wrecking the middle class (since businesses take those tax breaks and use ’em to offshore more workers).

    So the Obama administration’s conclusion is: we need more free trade and more tax breaks for giant corporations.

    As Paul Krugman remarks:

    It all makes me think of an 80s-era joke about centrist Democrats, which was that their big difference from Republicans was compassion: the Democrats cared about the victims of their policies.

    No U.S. president has ever been re-elected with unemployment above 9%. Barack Obama is making a bet that “this time it’s different” because of the peculiar political and geo-economic circumstances in 2012.

    I say that’s a dangerous bet. “This time it’s different” was the clarion call of the people who claimed the Dow would soon hit 36,000 back in 1999. “This time it’s different” was the rallying cry of the condo-flippers who kept bidding up house prices in 2004.

    Time will tell if Obama’s political calculations are correct. I’m not optimstic.

  101. 101.

    hildebrand

    August 14, 2011 at 9:10 pm

    @aisce: I cop to the mistake, then. My humblest apologies. I simply assumed Trurl was being a wanker. I must admit, I didn’t go back to read Trurl’s post again, as reading said posts usually increases acid production and I wanted to avoid that.

    I was wrong. I apologize.

  102. 102.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 9:11 pm

    No U.S. president has ever been re-elected with unemployment above 9%.

    I think you mean no US president since FDR.

  103. 103.

    Baud

    August 14, 2011 at 9:11 pm

    @marginalized for stating documented facts: Wow, you right that shit and you accuse me of lying.

  104. 104.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 9:12 pm

    @JPL:

    Turnout is key and imo,, the President needs to give them a reason to turn out.

    I hear this alot, but what is “the reason”

    Seems to me everyone wants a different reason to turn out, and historically “the other guy will kill you” is really the only thing that works.

  105. 105.

    JPL

    August 14, 2011 at 9:16 pm

    marginalized.. do you have a link for Stuck’s comment? I asked before and you ignored me. Say what you want but most of us provide links as a common courtesy.

  106. 106.

    pluege

    August 14, 2011 at 9:16 pm

    going on the offensive aggressively was always obama’s ONLY option to get anything done, even before he lost the house. obama’s pre-capitulation negotiating style has been an unmitigated disaster. obama has single-handedly taken anything and everything left of center-right completely out of the political dialogue, completely zeroed it out to say nothing of anything truly left. obama has been a willing accomplice of the disgusting republican greed obsession dismantling America as we knew it. Its a little late for him to wake up to the disaster he has wrought.

  107. 107.

    JPL

    August 14, 2011 at 9:20 pm

    @OzoneR: In GA it will not make a difference but in PA and Ohio it could change the outcome. Although he’s doing more to save Medicare, the elderly appear to be tone deaf and the youth vote is important. If upon graduation you can’t get a job wtf..you gonna vote?

  108. 108.

    Corner Stone

    August 14, 2011 at 9:21 pm

    @OzoneR:

    uh huh, yeah, I’m sure they did, all over the blogsphere, like you say, all over the place, that they should raise the debt ceiling in the December deal they all opposed.

    Yeah, Ezra Klein on Dec 9th 2010 certainly didn’t say this about not putting the debt limit in the Bush Tax Cut Deal:

    But this is a dangerous game of chicken that Democrats are playing, and not one they’ve shown much stomach for thus far. President Obama struck a deal on the tax cuts because he was terrified, in a weak economy, of letting taxes rise slightly. Are we really supposed to believe that Obama and the Democrats will be less terrified of letting the United States default on its debt, with all the attendant consequences to the economy?

    But I’m sure you’re right Nick. Nobody asked the question in real time. Nope, nobody. Not at all. Not til 7 months later.

  109. 109.

    marginalized for stating documented facts

    August 14, 2011 at 9:21 pm

    @OzoneR:

    You’re exactly right. I stand corrected. No U.S. president since FDR has been re-elected with unemployment above 9%.

    They didn’t have today’s unemployment surveys in 1936, but I believe at the end of FDR’s first term, unemployment is estimated to have dropped from roughly 24.9% in today’s terms in 1932 to 16.9% in today’s terms by 1936.

    See this Great Depression timeline.

    As mentioned, today’s measures of unemployment like U2 and U6 didn’t exist in the 1930s, so comparisons with today’s unemployment rate are only estimates. But unemployment did come down by 1/3 within FDR’s first term.

    For comparison, unemployment would have to drop to 6.5% by November 2012 for Obama to claim a comparable achievement.

    Everyone who thinks our unemployment rate will be 6.5% by November 2012 raise your hands. Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

  110. 110.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 9:23 pm

    @Corner Stone: Ezra Klein is part of the liberal blogsphere now?

  111. 111.

    JPL

    August 14, 2011 at 9:23 pm

    @pluege: I agreed with you til the wrought part..he didn’t wrought that. The repubs decided the only way to regain control is to tank the economy and they are right. They might inherit a pile of junk.

  112. 112.

    JPL

    August 14, 2011 at 9:25 pm

    @marginalized for stating documented facts: hey ..Where’s the link for Stuck’s quote?

  113. 113.

    aisce

    August 14, 2011 at 9:26 pm

    @ ozone

    Ezra Klein is part of the liberal blogsphere now?

    we knew you were mendacious before, but we didn’t know you were that mendacious. jesus, you’re making corner stone look like a voice of integrity here.

  114. 114.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 9:27 pm

    @JPL:

    Although he’s doing more to save Medicare, the elderly appear to be tone deaf and the youth vote is important. If upon graduation you can’t get a job wtf..you gonna vote?

    Well, that’s the problem. Are they going to vote for Obama if he just pontificates about pie-in-the-sky ideas on how to create jobs for them? “I still don’t have a job, but at least Obama has an idea,” is that going to get them to the polls? I don’t know.

    And even then, what’s the answer?

    Unless you think 22 year olds with English degrees are going to go build railroads and bridges.

  115. 115.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 9:27 pm

    @JPL:

    Although he’s doing more to save Medicare, the elderly appear to be tone deaf and the youth vote is important. If upon graduation you can’t get a job wtf..you gonna vote?

    And as for Medicare, I stopped caring. Why we’re wasting political capital protecting a generation that created the tea party and hasn’t voted Democrat in a decade has me wondering.

  116. 116.

    JPL

    August 14, 2011 at 9:31 pm

    @OzoneR: I agree. He motivated the youth vote and if they are met with closed doors they are going to be turned off to voting. They might not vote for Bachmann but they aren’t going to vote against her. What is sad is the elderly have the most to lose and they have no clue.

    edit..the elderly might be ignorant but personally i don’t want them on the street so I still care…

  117. 117.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 9:33 pm

    @aisce: This is all ridiculous because my initital comment was on the suggestion that Democrats should have repealed the debt ceiling completely, something NO ONE EVER CONSIDERED, not raised it in December.

    Of course they could’ve raised it in December, but they didn’t for whatever reason, but the liberal blogsphere wasn’t the one advocating for it, they wanted no deal in December period. They don’t get credit for saying it should have been in the deal because no one of them were advocating for it in December, they wanted nothing.

    This debt ceiling fight was something they were willing to have to not allow the Bush tax cuts to go on. If we’re playing this game, then why wouldn’t the Republicans have demanded we reinstate them now after we let them expire in order to raise the debt ceiling?

    EDIT: and no Ezra Klein does not count as part of the “liberal blogsphere,” sorry.

  118. 118.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 9:35 pm

    @JPL:

    .the elderly might be ignorant but personally i don’t want them on the street so I still care

    well, you’re a bigger person than I am because I’m frankly sick of them and their bullshit.

    I just feel bad for the 40 percent of so of them who do have a clue who get sandbagged with the consequences of the other 60 percent.

  119. 119.

    TK421

    August 14, 2011 at 9:38 pm

    @OzoneR:

    My parents always vote Democratic and are against the Tea Party. Also, I plan on being 65 some day myself.

  120. 120.

    marginalized for stating documented facts

    August 14, 2011 at 9:41 pm

    @pluege:

    I agree with you absolutely on this point. Obama lost the health care battle before it began by conceding crucial issues to the medical-industrial cartels before he even began negotiations with congress. Obama lost his struggle to scale back on the global war in terror before it began by conceding crucial points to the military-industrial complex and Pentagon generals before even giving them directives about reducing troops in Afghanistan. Obama lost the debt ceiling negotation before it began by conceding crucial points to the Tea Party lunatics before his negotiations even began.

    Rule #1 of negotation: start out with an extreme position, then bargain down. Obama started by conceding most of the opposition’s demands, which only encouraged them to make their demands more extreme.

    Notice, folks, how the obots massively contradict themselves. On the one hand, the Obots repeatedly claim that Obama’s political position is so unassailable come November 2012 that he’ll cruise to re-election because the Republicans are lunatics and fringe cranks and the voters will reject ’em at the polls.

    On the other hand, the Obots hysterically claim that Obama’s political position is so fragile and perilous that Obama must concede essentially all the Tea Party’s or the Pentagon generals’ demands, because otherwise he’ll never pass anything through congress and he’ll get crushed in 2012.

    Well, which is it? They can’t both be true.

    Either the voters enthusiastically support Obama, or they don’t. Either Obama is in a politically strong position, or he’s in a politically weak position, but he can’t be both simultaneously.

    Here’s an historical chart of the daily poll of U.S. economic conditions from 2009 to today in August 2011.

    You tell me — what’s the trend of the light green line that shows Americans responding “poor”? And what’s the trend of the dark green line that shows Americans responding “excellent or good”?

    …Work on forecasting presidential elections has exploded since the work of Kramer and Tufte in the 1970s (for examples see Abramowitz 1988, 2004, 2008; Campbell and Wink 1990; Fair 1978, 1982, 1988, 1996; Hibbs 1982; Lewis-Beck and Rice 1992; Holbrook 1996, 2001, 2004, 2008; Lewis-Beck and Tien 1996, 2001, 2004, 2008; Lockerbie 2004, 2008; Norpoth 1996, 2001, 2004, 2008; Wlezien and Erikson 1996, 2008; Bartels and Zaller 2001; Erikson and Wlezein 2008; Campbell 2004, 2008; Cuzan and Bundrick 2008). These models, using various aggregate political and economic variables, predict presidential election winners well in advance of Election Day. As Vavreck (2009) notes, ―the striking thing about these forecasting models is that despite their differences they almost always generate the same predicted winner. (p. 36)

    Source: “The effect of the U.S. economy on presidential elections, 1828-2008,” Jill Gloeckler and Irwin L. Morris, presentation at the American Politics Workshop, Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland, April 30, 2010. (pdf)

    Those models are not looking good for Obama in 2012.

  121. 121.

    NobodySpecial

    August 14, 2011 at 9:41 pm

    As the economy worsens, President Obama and his senior aides are considering whether to adopt a more combative approach on economic issues, seeking to highlight substantive differences with Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail rather than continuing to pursue elusive compromises, advisers to the president say.

    You don’t say.

  122. 122.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 14, 2011 at 9:41 pm

    @OzoneR: Do you have parents? Are they going to move in with you?

  123. 123.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 9:41 pm

    @TK421:

    Also, I plan on being 65 some day myself.

    yeah me too, but once those elected by the elderly now are down fucking up the country. not having Medicare will be the least of our fucking problems.

  124. 124.

    chopper

    August 14, 2011 at 9:42 pm

    fact: no black president has ever won reelection in the us.

  125. 125.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 14, 2011 at 9:43 pm

    Ah, fuck it. This thread is trashed….

  126. 126.

    marginalized for stating documented facts

    August 14, 2011 at 9:47 pm

    @NobodySpecial:

    Notice also that this “more combative approach” is all about talk, not action.

    Obama and his people debate whether “to highlight substantive difference.” But they’re not debating whether to do anything. Like, say, propose another round of stimulus spending. Or, for example, sequester funds from the Pentagon and use those monies to fund public works projects. Or, for instance, to bring the troops home from Afghanistan tomorrow so we can save the 200 billion dollars a year we’re pissing away there, which would allow us to cut much less money from social safety net programs as a result of that debt ceiling agreement.

  127. 127.

    General Stuck

    August 14, 2011 at 9:49 pm

    @Baud:

    That’s not shorter General Stuck. I think you’ve misinterpreted the reason you’ve been marginalized

    LOL, perfect. And don’t mind mclaren marginilized, he’s been away at the institute and just got certified for release, and is readjusting. I’m sure he’ll begin to make sense once his Haldol pump is calibrated.

    Ain’t that right mclaren marginilized?

  128. 128.

    marginalized for stating documented facts

    August 14, 2011 at 9:50 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Ah, fuck it. This thread is trashed…

    It was as soon as you arrived, bucko. I’ve cited six different peer-reviewed academic papers or polls or historical surveys so far. You’ve cited nothing.

    I’ve used logic and facts. You’ve used name-calling and changing the subject and insults.

    If you want to know why this thread is trashed, look in the mirror.

  129. 129.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 9:52 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Do you have parents? Are they going to move in with you?

    Are they going to have a choice?

    Anyway they’re teabaggers, they feel they should live on the streets so I don’t have to pay off the country’s debt, or something, so ok, go ahead.

  130. 130.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 9:55 pm

    @marginalized for stating documented facts:

    Or, for example, sequester funds from the Pentagon and use those monies to fund public works projects.

    that they definitely can’t do.

    Or, for instance, to bring the troops home from Afghanistan tomorrow

    you can’t just bring troops home “tomorrow” I thought we established that in 2007?

  131. 131.

    OzoneR

    August 14, 2011 at 9:56 pm

    @marginalized for stating documented facts:

    Notice also that this “more combative approach” is all about talk, not action.

    and here I thought all he had to do was “fight”

  132. 132.

    JPL

    August 14, 2011 at 9:56 pm

    @OzoneR: I haven’t been to church in decades but being raised catholic has it consequences.. Sad to say but they are now only concerned about eggs and not those born.

  133. 133.

    JPL

    August 14, 2011 at 9:58 pm

    @marginalized for stating documented facts: Doug it’s time for your alter ego to go to bed..You just spout nonsense.

  134. 134.

    marginalized for stating documented facts

    August 14, 2011 at 10:02 pm

    Gin and Tacos sums it up pretty well:

    Face it: we are going to pursue a protect-the-Job-Producers, tax cutting, government dismantling, Hayek-worshipping, quasi-supply side economic policy until it brings us to our utter ruin. There will be no change in direction until we hit bottom, until the economy and state of the nation literally cannot get any worse. This is no different than the Gilded Age, and it will end the same way. There is no point at which common sense or the Democratic Party or the American public or the media are going to turn back from the post-1980 Beltway elite consensus politics of Government is the Problem, free market worship, and tax cuts piled upon tax cuts. This is it. If the most liberal candidate who could plausibly be elected is an Eisenhower Republican trying to outflank the GOP on austerity, things aren’t going to improve until we are indisputably and comprehensively screwed.

    People like Harry Reid, Obama, Pelosi, and the rest of the Democratic “leadership” are serving no purpose except to make the process of decline as long, laborious, and excruciating as possible. We are putting off the inevitable. The worse the news gets and the deeper the depression (psychologically and economically) we are suffering becomes, the more I wish we could fast forward to the end. Let’s just get this the hell over with. Tea Party 2012. Let’s go ahead and elect Michelle Bachmann. Crown Paul Ryan. Get Scott Walker to Washington as quickly as possible. Put two or three more Scalia clones on the Supreme Court. Make Ron Paul the Fed chairman. Bring on the floods and the plagues of locusts. Let the Earth open up and swallow our country whole.

    We’re in a tailspin and the only thing our political system is capable of doing is to take the failed ideas of the past and do them again, only harder. If ten rounds of tax cuts didn’t work, try ten more (but larger). If a war didn’t help, start a couple more. If the Job Creators aren’t creating jobs, cater to more of their whims. If slashing the safety net didn’t help, slash it twice as much. There is no FDR or third party or Good Democrats or Sane Republicans coming to save us. If hitting bottom is our destiny, grease up the rails and let’s get it over with. From rock bottom there might be some glimmer of hope that things could improve, which seems preferable to our current dilemma of sitting around watching Rome burn and waiting for things to get worse.

    Source: “Endorsement,” August 11 2011.

  135. 135.

    Lolis

    August 14, 2011 at 10:16 pm

    @marginalized for stating documented facts:

    So let’s assume all that is true. You have two options to fix your leaky faucet that may flood your whole kitchen: 1) Hire a plumber that does not believe in the concept of plumbing. 2.) Hire a plumber that says he may not be able to fix the whole leak but would slow it down enough that maybe it will get fixed in the future.

    In any real world solution where you have two choices, you make a rational decision to go with the best option, even if it is not perfect.

  136. 136.

    WaterGirl

    August 14, 2011 at 10:25 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Comment from what’s his name to omnes: It was [trashed] as soon as you arrived, bucko…. If you want to know why this thread is trashed, look in the mirror.

    I’m sorry, but I got a good laugh out of that one!

  137. 137.

    marginalized for stating documented facts

    August 14, 2011 at 10:35 pm

    @OzoneR:

    Or, for example, sequester funds from the Pentagon and use those monies to fund public works projects.

    that they definitely can’t do.

    Notice once again how the obots constantly contradict themselves. Obama can order American citizens assassinated and kidnapped because he’s the president and he’s the commander in chief and the constitution just doesn’t count when we’re talking about the Global War on Terror. The president of the united has cosmic unlimited boundless powers.

    But wait! Obama can’t sequester funds even though Ronald Reagan sequestered funds, because the president is a tiny little nonentity helpless before the coloassal powers of congress and hemmed in with the steel bands of the supreme court’s interpretation of the law. The president is nothing, just a microscopic bug squirming impotently before an array of colossal forces.

    So which is it, obots?

    Either the president has vast powers, or he’s impotent — but he can’t be both at once.

    Or, for instance, to bring the troops home from Afghanistan tomorrow

    you can’t just bring troops home “tomorrow” I thought we established that in 2007?

    U.S. troop transport planes run from Afghanistan every day. Obama could order U.S. troops onto those transports and have ’em out of Afghanistan by the end of the week.

    But wait! Obama is helpless. He’s the commander in chief with unbounded powers to order the U.S. military to do everything up to and including murder U.S. citizens with assassination teams without even charging those citizens with a crime…but hold on, OBama is just the commander of chief and he can’t just order things to be done. That’s not the way it works.

    Make up your minds, obots. Either Obama is the commander in chief and what he orders the generals have to do, or he isn’t.

    Which is it?

    Obama can be commander in chief with supreme authority over U.S. military forces or he can be a helpless functionary with no real influence over U.S. combat operations…but he can’t be both.

  138. 138.

    priscianusjr

    August 14, 2011 at 10:45 pm

    @Ozymandias, King of Ants:

    that the quote you pulled refers to a sitting President as “Mr.”?

    I am a strong supporter of the president, Ozzie, but really, that’s a bogus issue, and there’s nothing I dislike more than folks dreaming up new and unheard of ways to be politically correct …
    http://www.witn.com/blogs/notesfromthenewsroom/39861842.html

  139. 139.

    Omnes Omnibus

    August 14, 2011 at 10:52 pm

    @WaterGirl: It wasn’t bad. marginalized/mclaren still has no clue about anything, but that wasn’t a bad diss.

  140. 140.

    NR

    August 14, 2011 at 10:53 pm

    Even Calculated Risk (a blog that is generally supportive of the administration’s economic policies) is calling this approach terrible:

    Tax incentives are the “bigger idea”? It sounds like the debate is between doing nothing and doing very little.

    More and more, it looks like this is actually going to be the White House’s strategy for 2012: Hope like hell that the Republicans will scare the public so much that people will vote for Obama just to keep them out of power.

    That strategy might actually work–if the economy wasn’t in the shitter. When people are desperate, they’ll vote for just about anything. If Obama keeps this up, he’s toast next year.

  141. 141.

    JWW

    August 14, 2011 at 10:54 pm

    And,

    What did they do when they held the House, Senate and Executive? They fought with each other… They had all the votes and still did nothing. Now that they have lost the House they can lay blame. You are John Cole and always will be. Oh I forgot, They passed the health care bill..; With majorities in every corner how long and on what Eve did that take place.

  142. 142.

    NR

    August 14, 2011 at 10:59 pm

    Also, Robert Reich is worth reading on this as well:

    So rather than fight for a bold jobs plan, the White House has apparently decided it’s politically wiser to continue fighting about the deficit. The idea is to keep the public focused on the deficit drama — to convince them their current economic woes have something to do with it, decry Washington’s paralysis over fixing it, and then claim victory over whatever outcome emerges from the process recently negotiated to fix it. They hope all this will distract the public’s attention from the President’s failure to do anything about continuing high unemployment and economic anemia.

    Yay! Go team!

  143. 143.

    Elie

    August 14, 2011 at 11:19 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    Ewwww — now we are talkin man…

    sounds good to me and for once, we talk the same language….

    so how did you do your mushroom gravy? did you chop and sautee your mushrooms with butter and wine? I love herbed butter and it really helps make the most average steak into something special… I crush herbs, garlic into unsalted butter in a morter and pestle when at room temperature. I then chunk it into chunks/balls and refrigerate. When I grill my steak or whatever, I lay one of those puppies on the top after its finished…

    Then we must have soft warm rolls or biscuits, right?

  144. 144.

    marginalized for stating documented facts

    August 14, 2011 at 11:25 pm

    @NR:

    Yes, my sense is that Obama calculated his strategy based on the presumption that this was a normal economic downturn.

    Unfortunately, the 2007 global economic meltdown was not a normal economic downturn. It’s more like a sea-change, a total break with the post-WW-II economic system.

    Obama’s miscalculation means that unemployment is going to be incredibly high by November 2012. How high, we don’t know. If we get a double-dip recession, which the stock market collapse in response to the ruinous debt ceiling deal suggests, then aggregate demand slumps again, we’re back to a 2007-type downturn, and unemployment could well spike above 10% or even 12%.

    If we don’t get a double-dip recession, we’re still trapped in a “lost decade” with high unemployment and an economy growing circa 0.1% per year, with offshoring and ever-increasing automation continually reducing the percentage of the American population at work even as collge tuition increases at a faster rate than houses did during the housing bubble. So when young people graduate from college, they’re crushed with hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt they can never discharge, and nothing but minimum wage jobs available — if they’re lucky. If they’re not lucky, they wind up living with their parents with no jobs at all.

    We don’t know what November 2012 will be like. The world is radically transforming. Essentially every institution that kept the developed world afloat after WW II is breaking down now: free trade, banks, universities, newspapers, political parties, technology…they’re all becoming toxic and destructive to the jobs of the middle class.

    So we don’t know what’s going to happen in November 2012. Obama could get wiped out because the economy’s so horrible. Or maybe people will be so desperate they’ll vote for Obama out of sheer hope. We don’t know.

    All I’m saying is that in the past, presidential elections have historically been referenda on the economy. There’s a long history of this in historical polling statistics. Various kooks have claimed that when I say this I “just spout nonsense.” What’s nonsense? The statement that presidential elections are mainly about the economy? Tracking polls have established that quite clearly. It’s been documented in the polling literature. Look up the academic papers on the subject in google scholar: the peer-reviewed economic and sociological and political science literature on the subject is extensive.

    As for the economy, something is radically different in both the 2001 and the 2007 recession compared to all other American historical recessions. Long-term unemployment has spiked to astounding levels never seen since the 1930s; median weeks of unemployment are now at a record high never seen since statistics on unemployment were first compiled. Manufacturing growth in the U.S. has turned negative. These kinds of numbers have never been seen since the 1930s.

    Back in the 1960s one of President Johnson’s economic advisers, Brookings Institution economist Arthur Okun, set out a rule of thumb other quickly named “Okun’s Law”: if production and incomes–GDP–rises or falls 2% because of the business cycle, the unemployment rate will fall or rise by 1% along with it: the magnitude of swings in the unemployment rate will be half or a little less than half the magnitude of swings in GDP. Why? For four reasons: (a) businesses will tend to “hoard labor” in recessions, keeping useful workers around and on the payroll even if there is temporarily nothing for them to do; (b) businesses will cut back hours when unemployment rises, and so output will fall more than proportionately because total hours worked will fall by more than total bodies employed; (c) plant and equipment will run less efficiently when hours are artificially shortened because of the recession; and (d) some workers who lose their jobs won’t show up in the unemployment statistics but will instead retire or drop out of the labor force. For all four of these reasons, whatever rise in the unemployment rate we see in a recession is supposed to be a fraction of the fall we see in GDP relative to trend.

    But this time we are not following this rule. This time Okun’s Law is being broken. The unexpected 1.2% extra decline in real GDP in 2009 should have been accompanied by an 0.5 or 0.6 percentage-point rise in the unemployment rate, not by the 1.5 percentage point rise in the unemployment rate we are now seeing. I confess that the fact that this is happening comes as a surprise to me. But when I think back we have seen this before. In 1993–two full years after the National Bureau of Economic Research had called the end of the 1990-1991 recession–the unemployment rate was still higher and the employment-to-population ratio lower than it had been at the recession trough. And we saw the same `jobless recovery’ after the recession of 2001: it took 55 months after the formal end of the recession in November 2001 before a greater share of Americans had jobs than had had them in November of 2001.

    Source: “Fasten your seatbelts for the jobless recovery,” Brad deLong, 17 July 2009.

    Which of the economic graphs deLong shows is “nonsense”? Why is the data coming out the Bureau of Economic Statistics “nonsense”? What part of the statement that “things are different in the jobless recoveries from the recession of 2001 and 2007 than they have been in previous American economic history” is nonsense?

    Why is this chart of Leading Economic Indicators showing the relationship with GDP since 1985 “nonsense,” especially since it predict a decline in GDP by 2% sometime in the next several years, auguring a new recession?

    This chart from Bloomberg shows the sharp decline in Leading Economic Indicators and the close relationship it has with economic output (GDP). This chart portends a fall in GDP to below 2% year over year. When GDP has fallen below 2% historically, the U.S. economy has fallen into recession every time since 1948.

    Source: “Money and markets,” 17 May 2011, Bryan Rich.

  145. 145.

    Observer

    August 14, 2011 at 11:49 pm

    @marginalized for stating documented facts: There’s no point in providing factual 3rd party links to this BJ crew, nobody’s listening.

    Whether anyone should listen is another story but on this comment board and at this time there are no fence sitters who will be swayed by anything other than an empty bank account one day far into the future when all the finer points of this debate will have been long forgotten.

  146. 146.

    Corner Stone

    August 14, 2011 at 11:50 pm

    @Elie: I don’t eat bread.
    https://balloon-juice.com/2011/08/14/open-thread-1113/#comment-2726130

  147. 147.

    JenJen

    August 15, 2011 at 12:07 am

    @NR #141: I’m with Calculated Risk and Robert Reich. In fact, upthread I expressed my dismay with this approach almost exactly the way Calculated Risk did.

    Awful tactic. I’m a reliable defender of the Administration but this approach reeks of electoral politics and I really don’t think the people are in the mood for this shit anymore. Maybe it’s because I live in Ohio and we’re really, really hurting, so my opinion is skewed. But this feels so wrong on every level to me.

  148. 148.

    dww44

    August 15, 2011 at 12:25 am

    @General Stuck:

    From what I gather the WH, is going with a strategy of proposing a lot of smaller bills in staccato the next year or so, and the wingers will say no, because it doesn’t help their real base, the wealthy. And continues to draw clear lines of distinction between Obama and the dem way, and the wingnut way.

    Haven’t read thru the thread, but someone on MSNBC the other evening said that Obama ought to send a big bill to Congress early September that contains all sorts of measure to stimulate the economy and dare the Republicans to vote it down. He needs to aim big for once.

  149. 149.

    dww44

    August 15, 2011 at 12:29 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: It is actually respectful, traditionally, to refer to the sitting President as “Mr.” Has been for all of my cognizant life, which spans the last few decades.

  150. 150.

    FlipYrWhig

    August 15, 2011 at 1:53 am

    @JenJen:

    I’m a reliable defender of the Administration but this approach reeks of electoral politics and I really don’t think the people are in the mood for this shit anymore.

    But that’s the choice. Go all in on “electoral politics” and propose a bunch of stuff that can’t get done, then highlight that the reason it can’t get done is Republican intransigence; or try for dinky little fixes that could conceivably get done if Republicans could just say yes to their own ideas. The first option accepts that nothing will be done to help the economy and tries to get creative with blame. The second option holds open the possibility that something will be done to help the economy, but it will be small, and working with Republicans negates the campaign strategy of spotlighting how they refuse to work with him. Both are ugly.

    @dww44:

    someone on MSNBC the other evening said that Obama ought to send a big bill to Congress early September that contains all sorts of measure to stimulate the economy and dare the Republicans to vote it down.

    I don’t see the logic in that. Republicans would gladly vote down the big bill, and the size of the bill would be the excuse: it was too many billions of dollars in icky Government Spending, the kind that didn’t work before. The benefit of small bills is that Republican refusals (might) seem petty, and the repetition of the Democratic proposal being met by Republican refusal helps remind everyone what’s going on. IMHO Republicans are better served getting a big bill to shoot down than a series of small bills.

  151. 151.

    TenguPhule

    August 15, 2011 at 2:35 am

    If Obama embarks on a bold new scheme of mass butchery of his political enemies and crushing their skulls under his heels, he’ll lock my vote.

  152. 152.

    JenJen

    August 15, 2011 at 3:10 am

    @FlipYrWhig: Both are indeed ugly. And the thing is, the ship has sailed in terms of the kind of spending which might actually have an effect on this economy. I get all of that.

    I don’t want to see this president go out with a whimper. And to me, all the giddy squealing about Rick Perry this or Michele Bachmann that just gives me the sickening feeling that if any of these nutjobs ends up nominated, they’re just that much closer to the White House. And the crazier they look, the more reasonable that plastic puppet Mittens (the clear choice of GOP Inc.) looks. I’ve been an avid political watcher for most of my life, and no matter what the polls say now, I don’t see Obama getting reelected with 10%-ish unemployment and a disgruntled electorate. This NYT piece is more kindle for the apathy fire. We can’t pretend like the eye-rolling is no big deal. I would’ve poo-pooed what NR said several months ago, but it’s a salient point: When people are desperate, they’ll vote for just about anything. And they’re not going to vote for the guy who doesn’t really seem to stand for anything, even if he’s obviously the better choice to people like you and me.

    Again, I write this as a reliable defender of the administration. But it takes way too many words to make our argument, no matter how right it is, and all of it can be undermined with a handful of 30 second ads.

    Nobody gives a flying fuck about the deficit, but it sure does seem like Obama and his advisors are about to double-down on it. If that’s the ground upon which he builds the foundation for the 2012 reelection campaign, Crossroads GPS, et al, are gonna make sure he owns it.

    I don’t think this ends well. First time I’ve felt this way since November 2008.

  153. 153.

    Yutsano

    August 15, 2011 at 3:24 am

    @JenJen: We have one thing going for us now: it’s 15 months until the election. A LOT can happen in that period of time. I agree it looks bad now. But keep in mind Obama’s really good at highlighting the contrasts. It’s okay to feel disheartened. This is not how I was hoping things would go either. There is time for things to happen though. The election is not tomorrow.

    ETA: And at the end of the day, u still haz teh cute puppeh.

  154. 154.

    JenJen

    August 15, 2011 at 3:25 am

    @FlipYrWhig: One more thing: A short time after the debt ceiling drama bullshit was “settled”, Atrios posted this:

    President Barack Obama on Friday made his promised hard pivot to jobs, following up the morning’s news about a 10 percent unemployment rate by announcing $2.3 billion in tax credits for clean-energy jobs.

    He then added: “Oh, sorry, that was January 2010.” It left a lump in my throat. No, strike that. It was like being smacked in the face with a frying pan. I’m fucking worried.

    @Yutsano: Thanks for that, and you’re right, and I’m trying to keep my perspective. But also keep in mind that a lot of really bad stuff can happen in 15 months, things we haven’t even thought of yet. Thank dog football and hockey starts up again shortly to distract me from my brand-spanking-new anxiety.

  155. 155.

    Davis X. Machina

    August 15, 2011 at 3:27 am

    @JenJen: When was the last time Reich wrote a column that wasn’t entirely in the subjunctive mood?

  156. 156.

    JenJen

    August 15, 2011 at 3:42 am

    @Yutsano: He is teh cutest puppeh and I’m overjoyed that he is SO into lap-time. It’s kind of all he ever wants to do, just stare at me until I pull him up into the chair for a good cuddle. Without teh puppeh I might be forced to give Ambien and anti-depressants a whirl for the first time. ;-)

    Thanks for all you’ve written, sweetness. Even exuberant, sunny optimists like me crack once in awhile.

  157. 157.

    JenJen

    August 15, 2011 at 3:46 am

    @Yutsano: I have a comment in moderation, but when it’s cleared I hope you’ll come back and read it. I think I may have fucked up by mentioning prescription medications of some sort.

  158. 158.

    Yutsano

    August 15, 2011 at 3:57 am

    @JenJen: That was it. But AL is good for freeing things up late at night. And you can ask wifey: I’m not all sweetness and light all the time. I have my cranky moody side too. It’s mostly idiot taxpayers that bring it out though.

    I wasn’t necessarily disagreeing with you: It looks bad now. And we have to live in the now. But there’s also things like this, and it puts me back in the fight.

    EDIT: And I gotta crash. I’ll try to get wifey over here unless she’s lurking. Lord knows you two can talk with each other a spell!

  159. 159.

    John Puma

    August 15, 2011 at 4:42 am

    Those first two years of coddling Republicans sure did have consequences, didn’t it?

  160. 160.

    JenJen

    August 15, 2011 at 5:52 am

    @Yutsano: Realizing how far we’ve come in the fight against anti-gay bigotry should give all of us pause. And how awesome is the outrageously brave, young Gabe Aderhold? People like that kid just keep me going. Fight the good fight against hate, young American man. Damn he makes me proud.

    Finally off to sleep myself.

  161. 161.

    boss bitch

    August 15, 2011 at 7:30 am

    @marginalized for stating documented facts:

    Get a fucking blog and link to it. Shit.

  162. 162.

    OzoneR

    August 15, 2011 at 8:12 am

    @JenJen:

    He then added: “Oh, sorry, that was January 2010.” It left a lump in my throat. No, strike that. It was like being smacked in the face with a frying pan. I’m fucking worried.

    At least it admits one thing, that he tried to come up with a plan and it went nowhere. Everything the left is telling him he should do, he’s done, and it’s gone nowhere.

  163. 163.

    OzoneR

    August 15, 2011 at 8:22 am

    @dww44:

    but someone on MSNBC the other evening said that Obama ought to send a big bill to Congress early September that contains all sorts of measure to stimulate the economy and dare the Republicans to vote it down. He needs to aim big for once.

    and this will do what, exactly?

  164. 164.

    El Cid

    August 15, 2011 at 9:40 am

    @dww44:

    Haven’t read thru the thread, but someone on MSNBC the other evening said that Obama ought to send a big bill to Congress early September that contains all sorts of measure to stimulate the economy and dare the Republicans to vote it down. He needs to aim big for once.

    You might be talking about what Rachel Maddow (following, I believe, Kevin Drum’s suggestion, at the moment I’m not going to Google it) outlined.

    It wasn’t so much “all sorts of measures” or “aim big”.

    The suggestion was to take requests for federal funding already sent as letters to the White House from Republican legislators within the context of how many jobs they (the R. legislators) said would be created, and then fund them.

    I.e., a request for federal grants from Michele Bachmann for bridge work wherein she stated the number of jobs which would be created in Minnesota.

    I presume that the suggestion will be seen as not worth mentioning, because taking Republican legislators’ own in-print requests for funding as official requests and granting them would mean it wouldn’t get passed*, and wouldn’t be helpful electorally, would be spun badly by the media, and so forth.

    Again, this wasn’t an idea by Rachel Maddow, but a piece giving a clear discussion to the idea already made by a prominent liberal author, showing a number of the actual letters sent by the R. legislators.

    It would seem to me somewhat clever to hold up a letter by M. Bachmann in front of cameras and announce that the request would be granted, but, I’m not an insider campaign adviser or policy aide.

    * It was part of the suggestion that it didn’t need to be approved by Congress.

  165. 165.

    El Cid

    August 15, 2011 at 9:55 am

    Here is the Rachel Maddow clip discussing the suggestion to grant requests to the White House for job-creating funding already made (in print) by Republican legislators.

    Also, I was incorrect: it was Steve Benen, and not Kevin Drum, Maddow was basically highlighting.

    A transcript for the segment is available on the video clip page, but I can’t figure out how to copy & paste it.

  166. 166.

    The Raven

    August 15, 2011 at 10:19 am

    “Nothing is going to make it through the Republican House, so your options are do nothing quietly (compromise), do nothing loudly and hope it helps change the political dynamic.”

    The only way to deal is to flip the House. After all the failed negotiations, all the small Democratic gains and huge Democratic concessions…well…it may happen, but if it does, it will be because the R’s shoot themselves in the foot, not because anyone believes the D’s will deliver. There’s been too many failures, and I don’t think any amount of money will persuade the public against the reality of widespread unemployment and home foreclosures. It may be an opportunity for liberal third-parties. With the D’s and R’s busy fighting for the corporate money, it may just be possible for other parties to gain a few seats.

    …and what is going to happen when the health care mandates come into force during a depression?

  167. 167.

    Bruce S

    August 15, 2011 at 12:09 pm

    The examples of Jared Bernstein, Christina Romer and Larry Summers suggests that the best advice to the President comes from people outside of the Beltway echo chamber. Don’t buy into the GOP’s narrative on government spending and job creation:

    http://titanicsailsatdawn.blogspot.com/2011/08/best-way-to-get-people-back-to-workis.html

  168. 168.

    OzoneR

    August 15, 2011 at 7:38 pm

    @The Raven:

    It may be an opportunity for liberal third-parties. With the D’s and R’s busy fighting for the corporate money, it may just be possible for other parties to gain a few seats.

    Without corporate money, how the hell are they going to do that?

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