If you listen to the establishment press the president’s speech will determine whether the president listens to “liberals” and ditches the move toward economic austerity or “moderates” and Republicans and sticks to budget cutting. In fact, it’s more like the most of the economics profession, the bond market and the “liberals” on one side and Republicans and beltway columnists on the other.
Reader Interactions
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Hunter Gathers
Sounds like the bond vigilantes are siding on more economic growth. Funny how that works.
PeakVT
Liberals and facts vs. conservatives and the media? I think we all know who will win that battle.
cleek
nah. the narrative is already written. and it will be adhered to.
and if you don’t know what the narrative is, there will be at least a dozen comments here to show you. hint: look for the words “pre-compromise” and “weak”.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
NYTimes: Obama Pulls Back Proposal to Tighten Clean Air Rules
“He said changing the rule now would create uncertainty for business and local government”
Mike Goetz
I think Obama has had just about enough of these Republican nozzles. He’s going to mount up his war-horse and sound the trumpet next week.
General Stuck
Doesn’t matter, all politics all the time here on out, and little, if any new legislation. With dubious target audiences, like indie swing voters with empty heads for politics, or about anything else.
Meanwhile the ACA is being implemented with more and more federal spending that can’t be stopped by the wingers, unless they want to shut the whole fucking show down, so we can get about the civil war they seem to want, if they don’t get all their way.
The biggest problem the pro left presents, is the real possibility we will run out of poutrage. So I am for a poutrage bill to close this gap.
Yutsano
@Hunter Gathers:
The bond vigilantes are still buying American debt hand over fist. One would think that might suggest a demand for it. Or something.
eemom
nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong.
Big Baby DougJ
@eemom:
Still kicking myself for not using “what a field day for the heat” during the heat wave.
Perspecticus
Hmmm, I wonder which it will be? Maybe the fact Obama has announced today that he is suspending implementation of new smog regulations will give us a hint…
Roger Moore
@Yutsano:
Just remember, the market is always right. Except when it disagrees with the Republicans, in which case it’s being manipulated by the Kenyan in Chief.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .:
And Austerity continues to fail upward. Everyone really has drunk the fucking ‘uncertainty’ Kool-aid in Washington, haven’t they.
Fuck it all. No matter what happens in 2012, we’re fucked it seems, and this just seems to prove it.
Davis X. Machina
@cleek: “This is the Left, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
Liberty/Valance 2012!
John Puma
@cleek:
You must have missed the part about “buttocks kissing,” as demonstrated today in #4 and °10.
Davis X. Machina
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .:
Obama was lobbied heavily by Democratic senators — Democratic senators — to wit, Joe Manchin and Jay Rockefeller, from West Virginia, and Mark Begich, from Alaska, and Clair McCaskill from Missouri, and Max Baucus from Montana, and Carl Levin – yep, reliable, liberal Carl Levin — of Michigan, for precisely this, for over a year.
Napoleon
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .</a
What an asshole!
ppcli
Lost decade, here we come.
General Stuck
I am pretty certain that talk of austerity will have little effect on economic growth, or hurt the prospect of new jobs in the private sector. Just a little minor zen.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
DXM: Oh, then it’s ok, isn’t it. It’s not as if the NYT will portray this as a victory for Republicans or anything. Bipartisanship! Uncertainty!
lacp
@Davis X. Machina: Fuck me – Rocky referred to ‘clean coal?’ Why not ‘urine champagne?”
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Davis X. Machina:
It was stupid when they proposed it, and it’s still especially stupid now that Obama has decided to endorse the idea. I really feel honestly wish we could just chuck out half of the current Dems in Congress and get people who won’t fuck us over irreparably or simply cave to the GOP for the sake of camaraderie or misplaced bipartisanship. But oh, I forgot, that just helps the GOP since the country overwhelmingly despises Liberals so much for both being entirely ineffectual and inconsequential, and tyrannical and totally destructive of everything at the same time.
I just…ghhh…what’s the fucking use. Feels like anything short of retaining/regaining all branches is a guaranteed disaster scenario, and the exception may as well still be one with fucking Dems interalizing every single fucking GOP policy whole hog it seems.
catclub
Eschaton alternates between ‘we are ruled by monsters’ and ‘we are ruled by fools’, but the rulers are never changed.
The latest was pointing out an article in the NYT that
‘Gosh, it looks like austerity is not working to juice up the economy’ from above fools who the DFH’s told (repeatedly) “austerity kills the economy!”.
Davis X. Machina
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .: It’s not OK. But it is willfully obtuse to pretend that the only fingerprints on the weapon are Obama’s.
Corner Stone
@Davis X. Machina:
Then one wonders if a guarantee was secured for a future vote on something significant in return?
Especially from Mssrs Manchin, Baucus and Madame McCaskill?
Davis X. Machina
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik: Two choices: Coalition government — because that’s what a Democratic majority in either House actually involves — or permanent minority.
I believe you were referring to the latter when you said ‘guaranteed disaster scenario’.
There is no tertium quid.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Davis X. Machina:
I will give that, but it fucking disappoints and disgusts me that Obama went out of his way to add his fingerprints to it. It just seems to crystalize the fact that whether he wins or not, we’re already diving headlong into the right-wing bullshit parade of Galtianism. The only question left of 2012 is how fast we fall.
Yutsano
@Davis X. Machina:
You sure know how to harsh a poutrage dude.
Corner Stone
@Mike Goetz:
What will he say?
FlipYrWhig
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
You can try it, but instead you get people who fuck us over even more irreparably or simply cave to the GOP for the sake of actually belonging to the GOP. You know, Republicans. That’s why conservative Democrats have so much leverage. Except for Joe Lieberman, who’s just a dick.
Corner Stone
@Yutsano:
The entire world is screaming at us to take their money and hold it. We’re paying real negative interest rates for the privilege.
We are literally costing ourselves a fortune to not be spending massive amounts of capital right now.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
DXM: Then take it up with the Times, not me. Every word I posted came from the head and article body. Strangely, there is no substantive mention of Democrats lobbying for the change in policy.
And no one could have predicted that the reversal would be framed that way.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@General Stuck:
poutrage
I’m using that lots going forward.
lacp
@Corner Stone: What difference does it make? He’s dealing with lunatics. If he stood up there and started reading from the Washington phone book, they’d all come away screaming “Socialism!”
Dennis SGMM
@Mike Goetz:
How Don Quixote that would be.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Davis X. Machina:
@FlipYrWhig:
Yes, yes, I know, I understand this, I just wish it wasn’t like this because it feels like our current coalition is basically 50% people who will gleefully agree with GOP ideas and fuck our country over for good, 25% who just go along because ‘compromise is good!’, 20% who want the good fight but get steamrolled anyway, and maybe 5% at most who is just there for the GOP and 75% of our caucus to use as Keynesian scapegoats to prove why Austerity is so goddamn awesome if we just committed to it.
Corner Stone
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .: I’d prefer it if in the future when you abbreviated his name you would address him as “DMX”. That way I can sing gruffly to myself, “One more road to cross, one more risk to take. Gotta live my life like there’s one more rule to break.”
Preciates yas.
Davis X. Machina
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .:
Long-standing opposition by a solid third of the Democratic Senate caucus — including some of its most liberal members — to the use of the EPA regulatory regime as a substitute for legislative action, is not some recent thing, or some obscure thing.
As a Mainer, I live downwind from everybody — these things matter.
The Times’ malpractice is to be taken as a given. In the age of Google, though, the Times‘ malpractice should end with the Times.
Corner Stone
The Great Bank Robbery
Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Mark Spitznagel
“That $5 trillion dollars is not money invested in building roads, schools, and other long-term projects, but is directly transferred from the American economy to the personal accounts of bank executives and employees. Such transfers represent as cunning a tax on everyone else as one can imagine. It feels quite iniquitous that bankers, having helped cause today’s financial and economic troubles, are the only class that is not suffering from them – and in many cases are actually benefiting.
…
Moreover, low-interest-rate policies transfer inflation risk to all savers – and to future generations. Perhaps the greatest insult to taxpayers, then, is that bankers’ compensation last year was back at its pre-crisis level.”
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
DMX (h/t CS): Bullshit. When the majority of Americans start informing themselves, your construction applies. Until then, the NYTimes will indeed set the tone.
Judas Escargot
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .:
I think I’ll call up the bank and tell them I won’t be paying my mortgage anymore, because of the ‘uncertainty’ in the jobs and housing markets.
I’m sure they’ll understand.
Corner Stone
@Dennis SGMM: I can only conclude that you, sir, are objectively pro-windmills.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
And personally, you Krugman-esque mind reader, I am less worried about the policy issues (at this time) then how it appears to the yokels who get there info from the media, like the NYT.
catclub
@Corner Stone: “That $5 trillion dollars is not money invested in building roads, schools, and other long-term projects, but is directly transferred from the American economy to the personal accounts of bank executives and employees.”
Suppose there are 5 thousand bank execs and employees.
That works out to 5 thousand new billionaires.
In 2010 Forbes listed about 1000 billionaires worldwide.
I am sceptical that $5Tr was transferred into 5000
bank accounts.
Corner Stone
@catclub: I only quoted excerpts, that’s why I linked the article for anyone interested enough to judge for themselves.
The previous para says:
“For the American economy – and for many other developed economies – the elephant in the room is the amount of money paid to bankers over the last five years. In the United States, the sum stands at an astounding $2.2 trillion. Extrapolating over the coming decade, the numbers would approach $5 trillion,”
Dennis SGMM
@Corner Stone:
Damn straight! Two chickens in every pot and a windmill on every roof. And, the windmills must be 100% American made. That’ll show those Chinese bastards a thing or two.
Napoleon
@Davis X. Machina:
But they don’t vote on the rules. This is Obama just surrendering when he could do something about the issue unilaterally. He is completely ball less.
OzoneR
@Davis X. Machina:
but he supported a robust public option!!!
handy
@Napoleon:
NO! You don’t see it! His hands are tied! There’s nothing he can do. The big meanie RACIST Republicans and the blue dog Demonrats are FORCING his hand! Run away firebagger!
OzoneR
@Napoleon:
it’s a stupid rule! He should be surrendering
Corner Stone
@Napoleon:
Dammit! Now why’d you have to go and say something that’s going to make cleek The Steely Eyed Centrist(tm) cry?
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
Napoleon: There is a legitimate argument to be made that the rule change could make the reelection efforts of many of those Senators more difficult at a time when Dems are struggling to not lose the Senate. I am not sure how persuaded I am, but the argument isn’t illegitimate on its face.
The optics of it (as much as I hate the term) are shit, though, and right now that matters if you want to see Obama reelected (and I do).
aisce
@ kryptik
that makes no sense. the epa is part of the executive branch. how would the president not be involved? individual senators don’t have the authority to personally overrule a cabinet secretary. and nobody wants an internecine legislative battle between the coal state dems and republicans vs. the administration and environmentals.
Corner Stone
I think the political calculation was that if the rule was changed then a solid one third of the Democratic caucus would vote with the R’s to cut funding for the EPA.
Then we’d all be forced to drink naptholene straight from the tap.
handy
@Corner Stone:
That raises a question, does the salt in the tears cause the steel to rust quicker?
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
OzoneNick: Really? Ignoring EPA scientists and cutting your EPA administrator off at the knees is smart? Why haven’t we made you head of the DNC yet?
Corner Stone
@handy: It’s, ummm, more of a metaphor for the determined mindset of the individual who is uncompromising on the compromises that must be made.
Corner Stone
Speaking of the head of the RNC, has anyone else noticed that Prince Reibus looks like Mark Halperin’s brother?
OzoneR
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .:
Look asshole, I explained in another thread why this rule is stupid. Companies are going to do whatever costs them the least amount of money, in most cases, they means pollute and pay the fine, then they’re going to pass on whatever the cost was to pay the fine to the consumers and the employees either by letting them go, cutting their pay or benefits. and the end result is no less pollution and workers with either no jobs or less money or more expensive good in a stifling economy. This is not a right wing talking point, it’s common fucking sense.
you want to lower emissions, figure out how to do it in a way that makes polluting businesses money, because they’ll adopt it in a second.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
OzoneNick: You’ll never reach the rank off Obergruppenratfuker Sock Puppet with that kind of attitude, Mister. You really should take lessons from the ‘tako-chin. She really makes you look the horse’s ass.
OzoneR
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .: That’s your fucking response? Hilariously pathetic
Corner Stone
@OzoneR:
Call me names if you must, but isn’t this asinine reasoning the exact reason we have the EPA and its rules?
Jay B.
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .:
He’s principle-free, smug enough and so certain in his idiotic, completely counterproductive prescriptions that he just might be the head of the DNC.
And yes, the five Democrats who have so ruthlessly lobbied the President over clean air requirements represent a full-third of the caucus.
It is funny how that lobbying only works one way, of course. Obama can’t and won’t and shouldn’t lobby Congress, but if it gets turned around, then he should absolutely listen to a small rump of legislators to ensure the worst possible outcome of an Executive Branch decision over public health.
Big Baby DougJ
@handy:
The trouble with making fun of this is that it is true, at least as far as the economy goes. It wasn’t true in 2009 and you can lay all the blame you want on the policies then, but it is true now.
Jay B.
@Corner Stone:
No. We have an EPA to provide a foil for optics and memes, not to provide any kind of actual policy implementations that save lives and provide a modicum of protection against rapacious polluters.
Capitalism Uber Alles.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
OzoneNick: Oh, well, if you want to talk actual policy, you should try to make a good-faith effort, like say DMX (when he isn’t rapping about good girls and bad guys).
But since you are a liar and a fraud, I will continue to point and laugh.
OzoneR
@Corner Stone:
the EPA does more than give fines. My point wasn’t regulations don’t work, it’s that this stupid fine doesn’t work and it’s actually counterproductive because industries can still and will still pollute. All regulations are not fines. If you’re worried about the air, then go for the gambit and force violators out of business or put them in jail. Prison and bankruptcy is much more of a deterrent than a stupid fine huge corporations can easily eat by firing someone or cutting his/her pay or benefits.
One solution to this is cap and trade, and yes I know it’s not going to happen (even if it was a Republican idea), but that’s the answer.
OzoneR
@Jay B.:
How the hell does a stupid fine save lives and provide a modicum of protection against rapacious polluters? Are you really stupid enough to believe companies won’t pollute because of a fucking fine?
handy
@Corner Stone:
That’s a relief. From here it looked like cleek’s been getting a little rusty.
OzoneR
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .: Oh, I’m sorry, I thought I just laid out of you my rationale on why the policy is stupid and in response got some idiotic rambling about sock puppets.
Rabble Arouser
@Dennis SGMM: You know, that’s funny. My uncle is an engineer who works on those big old windmills that are going up all over the place. He works in South Korea, and one of his biggest customers is China.
Jay B.
My point wasn’t regulations don’t work
Your point is massively wrong. The air is most of the U.S. demonstrably better now than it has been in decades. It could be better still. And it needs to be better. But regulations have succeeded in countless ways. Moreover, businesses threaten all kinds of hell do invest in it, but they rarely go out of business when the regulation is enforced.
Prison and bankruptcy is much more of a deterrent than a stupid fine huge corporations can easily eat by firing someone or cutting his/her pay or benefits.
Thankfully, bankruptcy won’t lead to firing people or benefit cuts.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
Shorter OzoneNick: Nothing to be done! Best of all possible worlds!
OzoneR
@Jay B.:
and these regulations AREN’T FINE. You’ve completely misread what I said. Regulations WORK, fines aren’t regulations, they’re weak-kneed.
I never said they would go out of business, they’ll just cut some of the “fat” and pollute away while taking that fine they paid right back in the form of tax breaks.
No, but it will lead to cleaner air, which a fine won’t.
Dennis SGMM
Our party is going to have one hell of a time holding on to the Senate in ’12. We’re defending 22 seats and that’s assuming that there aren’t any defections or retirements before then. Yes, some of them are supposedly safe seats, just like Teddy Kennedy’s was a safe seat.
The only nettlesome aspect of this is the “I was for the rule change before I was against it,” bit. Obama is already facing an uphill battle for re-election and unforced errors like the Shirley Sherrod debacle, and the mis-scheduling of his jobs speech do not help. Obama maintains that he has a high regard for Congress. That’s nice. Why didn’t he, or someone on his staff, ask those Democratic Senators who would be affected by the rules change for their opinions before he endorsed the measure?
OzoneR
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .:
Yeah, that’s exactly what I said
Jay B.
You might be the dumbest person on Earth:
For example:
Cite.
Amazing!
handy
@OzoneR:
The extent of your Obama fluffery knows no bounds.
OzoneR
@Jay B.: REGULATIONS AREN’T ALL FINES! Got you’re fucking thickheaded.
I don’t have a problem with regulations,I DON’T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH REGULATIONS I have a problem with weak counterproductive ones like this.
OzoneR
@handy:
I’m not interested in playing Obot vs. firebagger anymore. I criticized the administration when Lisa Jackson talked about this policy a year ago or whenever it was, called it weak and counterproductive then. Said this was a problem fines were not going to help with and were only going to hurt. If you want to get companies to stop polluting, and also protect jobs, FINES aren’t going to cut it.
Corner Stone
I am so confused right now.
Jay B.
You make less sense than usual! Fines, “stupid fines” in your vernacular, are how regulations are enforced! Maybe you don’t actually know this. I don’t know. Regulations without penalties (i.e. “fines”) are “voluntary” measures and would be laughed at. You somehow think fines don’t work and are economically counterproductive — that’s been your argument, even though somehow you think that fines don’t work, but regulations do.
But we all agree that regulations have, in fact, worked! In your logical world, that’s unpossible! Because polluters pollute! Fines are useless.
They must be doing it out of the goodness of their hearts, I suppose.
OzoneR
@Jay B.:
They’re also enforced with prosecution Jay, you know that.
If you violate the Clean Air Act, you don’t get fined, you get PROSECUTED!
You don’t understand what I’m saying. I’m not calling for no regulations, I’m calling for stronger more effective regulations
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
OzoneNick: Since this regulation change would have tightened the regulations on grould-level ozone (something we could use here) under the Clean Air Act, I have to assume that you are a moron, not a liar.
Nah, fuck it, you’re both.
Corner Stone
@Big Baby DougJ:
Ok, now what?
handy
@Corner Stone:
Clap harder. Duh.
Jay B.
If you violate the Clean Air Act, you don’t get fined, you get PROSECUTED!
Prosecutions that lead to fines and hardly ever jail.
Corner Stone
@Jay B.:
As I asked previously, which curiously was never answered, when this lobbying took place was a deal reached for future votes? If not, why not?
Because what’s the benefit of having a Manchin in the caucus if you can’t extort a vote out of him for a little future election help?
OzoneR
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .:
and the punishment for violating it…is a fine, not prosecution, not jail time.
I could never aspire to be what you’ve mastered.
Corner Stone
@handy: Well, I find it curious. Like just saying that it’s true is the end of the discussion.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
OzoneNick: So you do support this change to the Clean Air Act, as specified in Sunstein’s letter of today?
Firebagger!
OzoneR
@Jay B.:
and criminal records and expensive lawyer bills and bad reputations.
OzoneR
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .:
I always did, I don’t support the weak-kneed lily-livered so-called “punishment” for violating it.
sherparick
As both ATRIOS and Kos say, I could put up with hippie punching and the surrendering principle stuff if actually was helpling Team D win. But obviously its not. Mike Tomasky has good column in the Guardian and Daily Beast. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/31/barack-obama-still-acting-like-a-wimp-refusing-to-fight-for-jobs.html
someguy
Just remember to thank POTUS as your emphysemic lungs are choking on long distance pollution sources. Obama, FTW!
El Cid
Remember, if you favor rational policies which are likely to do better for the population and work more successfully in the long run as well, you’re a “liberal”, and if you favor such policies too strongly, or if you favor such policies which would depart too greatly from current harmful and non-helpful policies, then you’re a “leftist”, or “progressive”, or “extreme,” or “fringe,” or etc.
Clearly the proper way to see things is to define a variety of approaches as “liberal” or “left” or whatever without regard to their reasonability and helpfulness, and as your policies get shittier and shittier, and more harmful to the majority of the population and the long term, then you become more and more politically sober, mature, centrist, moderate, and conservative.
If you believe you’re interested in a certain policy or analysis because it makes more sense to you, rather than first announcing your political ideological affiliation and then choosing your policies based upon that, then you are wrong and will hurt this nation.
handy
@Corner Stone:
Don’t you see, Obama could have done something two years ago and didn’t, but now he can’t therefore time to move onward not backward. After all, you don’t want President Bachmann, do ya? Well, DO YA?!
Jay B.
and criminal records and expensive lawyer bills and bad reputations.
The corporations are fined. Expensive lawyer bills don’t approach the amount of fines, which are what you say don’t work (and will “just be passed on to the consumer” anyway, right?) in the first place. And bad reputations? Really?
I’m all for putting CEOs in the stocks and let the hoi polloi toss fruit and shit at them, but that’s laughable.
It seems your argument is now that since fines don’t work (a assertion which you haven’t begun to prove), they shouldn’t do anything. Even the simple thing that the Administration’s own EPA chief said they have to do, or they are not in compliance with the actual law.
FlipYrWhig
@El Cid:
You can favor rational policies that are likely to do better for the population, etc., and be a liberal. Then when those policies don’t happen, you can still be a liberal, and try to figure out why they didn’t happen, and apportion blame accordingly. You can assign blame primarily to the president, or you can assign it elsewhere. Virtually none of the stuff we argue about here has to do with the policies we favor. The vast majority of it has to do with why we think we don’t get them, and what we and/or the president and/or the Democratic party should do to change that.
That’s why it’s so frustrating that the shorthand becomes that “liberals” and “the left” want better policies and “Obots” and “moderates” like the current ones. Most of the “Obots” are liberals. Most of the “Obots” also want better policies. They, we, just happen to have a different explanation about why we don’t get closer to the goals that we share.
Jay B.
@Corner Stone:
Because that would be politics and the President can’t play politics. Because he’s unaccountable to all the bad things Congress does or does not do, because he’s not the boss of them! Now, it gets a little dicey when he bows down to 5 (a full-third!) of the Democrats in his caucus over something — but quid pro quo sounds suspiciously like there is something he can do to get votes when he needs them. But that can’t be possible because you tell me how he was getting to 60 votes whenever it was when we could have criticized him about getting a shitty stimulus.
OzoneR
@Jay B.:
I’ll repeat
t
Got what a fucking liar. I specifically said cap and trade is the answer to this. I even said if we’re going to go this route, throw them in jail. You even responded by mocking that it would cause job losses anyway. Don’t fucking pretend I didn’t give you any other options.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
I don’t have a running tally but I would suggest that a significant chunk are actually once-and-future Republicans.
Jay B.
Virtually none of the stuff we argue about here has to do with the policies we favor.
This thread is. Most of the civil liberties threads are. The Libya threads. The more I read the comments here, the more I come away convinced we don’t believe in the same things (not you personally, I do actually believe you and I share a lot of end goals in common).
FlipYrWhig
@Jay B.: Quid pro quo sounds like a good idea indeed. If Obama was about to roll out some sort of job-creation package that might rile up spending-averse Democrats in red states, or if he liked to tout the virtues of moving towards energy that was cleaner and greener… _that’s_ the kind of thing that might have something to do with whatever’s going on with a handful of Democratic senators in heavy-industry and fossil-fuel states.
Jay B.
@OzoneR:
You plainly don’t understand what an assertion is. Because, to counter my argument that you only made an assertion on the efficacy of fines, you repeated the assertion. That’s still zero evidence.
As for this:
Right, but since cap and trade AND them going to jail AREN’T what the President is caving on, you’ve provided exactly ZERO options. There were two possible outcomes. Fines/reform or no fines/no reform. The President decided to continue the Bush era policies of no fines and no reform (i.e. they shouldn’t do anything). It’s pretty simple here, champ. That you can’t follow it isn’t my fault.
FlipYrWhig
@Jay B.: I don’t want to diminish the disagreements that are real, but I’m trying, though flailing, to counteract the idea that the big divides are between center-right and left, or that the critics are The Real Liberals. Usually we’re fighting about the way to make liberalism happen. That, and Megan McArdle.
Corner Stone
@Jay B.: There is an awful lot of fundamental disagreement here on bedrock policy. Not just the politics of implementing the policies large chunks here agree on.
FlipYrWhig
Following up on myself, I have no idea whether those two things (this rule change and the upcoming speech) are related, but given that we’ve been hearing some buzz about redressing regulations as a tactic in boosting economic growth, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if some of these coal-state and red-state Democrats demanded that their priorities get folded into, or handled in anticipation of, the Big Jobs Plan.
OzoneR
@Jay B.:
Then I go with the Bush era policies of no fines/no reform until we can get real reform, because a stupid small fine will do absolutely nothing to protect the environment and everything to hurt working families.
And you know who agrees with me?
progressive hero Sherrod fucking Brown, what does that tell you?
sorry champ, but I don’t see this as one or the other.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: Really? I don’t think so. I’ll spot you some of the civil liberties stuff, and some of the war/peace/humanitarian intervention stuff. What else comes to your mind as fundamental disagreements on bedrock policy?
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: Well actually, the civil liberties spectrum was my main contention. And more generally the “forward, not back” approach when viewing most other policies.
Jay B.
@Corner Stone:
Absolutely. Unions are a big one. I’ve read a lot of hostility here toward them (not everyone of course), the debt issue, etc.
handy
@OzoneR:
Sacrebleu!
Corner Stone
Financial rhetoric may come across as “politics” but the implemented policies that are the outcomes seem pretty contentious as well.
Jay B.
@OzoneR:
Which is exactly what I said and what you called me a liar for. I’m like totally surprised not in the least.
And why should it impress me that Sherrod Brown supports the same stupid thing?
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: OK. I’m still not sure if we (collectively) tend to talk about civil liberties issues _as_ civil liberties issues, or if the discussion deviates almost immediately into snark about high-profile civil liberties champions (like Greenwald) and causes celebres (like Bradley Manning and Anwar al-Awlaki). Those threads seem to turn into “this is very important, and I’m righteously mad!” vs. “there are more important issues, and I’m not that interested,” rather than Core View On Civil Liberties A vs. Core View On Civil Liberties B. YMMV.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: IMHO we’re almost all Keynesians at heart, and if we had our druthers… although some people are more concerned than others about handling long-term debt sooner than later. (BTW, the recent Washington Monthly article that kept popping up at Chez Benen called something like “20,000 Leagues Under the State” was a really eye-opening look at who benefits from tax breaks and loopholes.)
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig:
IMO, there’s a reason those threads turn very quickly into the things you list.
Look at cleek’s comment in this thread at #3. That’s an inoculation against any criticism, valid or not, such that when someone makes an argument the people who don’t want to hear it can drag it back up and say, “See! Knew it!”
Classic tactic around here, and Bradle Manning for example is ALWAYS dropped early and often in EVERY civil liberties thread so that he can be sneered off of all the way through.
Bill Murray
@Big Baby DougJ: There are several policies that are within the purview of the executive branch and have been long before Obama became President that could be undertaken without Congressional approval. If the President would propose some actual Keynesian policies, then move to his executive branch policies once they get shot down in Congress, that would be OK. Of course trying to convince anyone of the need to spend just after agreeing to limit spending seems pretty difficut.
What we are likely to get is bi-lateral free trade agreements and supply side crap
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: It is a classic tactic around here, but it comes from all quarters, e.g., handy above. We all play that game: “I know just what you’ll say.” Most threads could just be ELIZA sessions. I think mat0k0_chan was one that ran amok.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: “Both sides do it!”
schlemizel - was Alwhite
@ppcli:
It will be a miracle if it is only a decade – we could be looking at 2 generations
Jay B.
That’s awesome! We’ll be breathing tar by Christmas. Thanks again, Obama Administration!
FlipYrWhig
@Bill Murray:
That doesn’t sound that difficult to me. “With all the money we just saved, we don’t have to be so guilty about doing something just for ourselves!” That’s an unbelievably common advertising pitch about why it’s a good idea to save money. You can even use it to buy a falcon, the bird that for some reason is becoming a TV commercial punchline.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: Well played!
AlphaLiberal
Obama Smog Decision Will Leave In Place ‘Legally Indefensible’ Environmental Standard
OK, now we have a whole new Obama betrayal. CHANGE my ass!
How does everyone respond to this? Clapping? Yeah! Bush pollution policies remain in place!
Oh, I know! Punch a hippie!
Fucking Obama.
AlphaLiberal
@Corner Stone:
I agree. I think some are current Republicans coming here to divide us.
nogo postal
Following our President’s offer to be the only adult in the room? Another typical FDL wannabe “heading exploding” blog from the professional left… or as John would call them “assholes”
http://www.lungusa.org/press-room/press-releases/failure-to-update-ozone-standard-outrageous.html
AlphaLiberal
Think Obama will recess appoint Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? No. He will not.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-senate-refuses-to-consider-obama-nominees/2011/09/01/gIQA2AkJvJ_story.html
Fucking hippies and liberals!
AlphaLiberal
@nogo postal:
You know this isn’t working, right?
Corner Stone
@AlphaLiberal: Didn’t you see the post where it said Obama was lobbied?
He was lobbied for God’s sake!
Jay B.
@nogo postal:
You’re defending this?
Hey Flip, clue me in again about having the same basic goals. This was a simple action by Obama, he caved, didn’t have to for any actual reason and now the GOP, smartly, has their eyes on gutting even more environmental legislation in the name of “jobs”. You want to translate this one for me?
gogol's wife
I hate all you people who hate Obama. I really do. More than I hate Republicans.
nogo postal
ah..you did click the link to get my point right?
see..thing have gotten so weird it really has become more difficult to separate snark from a “serious post” Yesterday John used the words “professional left” and “assholes” in the same post… it was stupid then..and it is stupid now… I did my post because a Democratic President is again embracing GOP crap. Last time it was “Debt” this time it is if only freakin job providers had fewer regulations they would hire more people… My granddaughter has asthma and live in Denver where temp inversion is a fact of life…so yea this is a little personal..and yeah I’m jist saying that ya can take a hood out of the Republican hood but at heart he is still a Republican..from the hood.
Jay B.
@nogo postal:
Sorry man. I’m testy. I failed to see the snark until i clicked on the link.
Neatly played.
But what the fuck does the Lung Association know about jobs? Answer me that, tree-hugger.
nogo postal
hey i live in the hills outside of Denver, we are losing all our trees to a bug “pine beetle” that because of milder winters has already destroyed 1/2 of the trees on our acres…but hey i do hug them before chopping them up…
…and now we don’t burn them but donate the mulch..
Remember the origin of Labor Day.. Peace/Dance/Resist
Jay B.
@nogo postal:
That really sucks about your granddaughter. It’s grotesque that something this simple, something that really wouldn’t do shit about jobs anyway (note to goobers, that’s a GOP ploy to gut all environmental regulations. Enjoy your arsenic morons) is sacrificed on the altar of…What, exactly?
The GOP smells blood in the water and they’ll get “our guy” to fold every fucking time going forward. Why wouldn’t they?
Jay B.
Oh, this makes me feel even better.
Grist, on the EPA fold and the logic:
Sure, Bivens might be wrong, but he’s released his numbers. See, Nick, this is the opposite of an assertion.
Tomjones
What a stupid, boring thread.
FlipYrWhig
@Jay B.: Regardless of the facts — which align with what I’d expect, i.e., that this regulation is helpful, not harmful, and not economically damaging — if red-state and coal-state Democrats say they want it rolled back, and they’re prepared to make life difficult for Obama’s bigger priorities in pursuit of that goal, IMHO Obama is better served “caving” as a sop to keep potential renegades from straying than he is standing firm. That’s why doing something like this is _politically_ defensible even if the result is a bad-to-terrible policy that makes healthy people sick and sick people sicker. But that, in turn, doesn’t mean that every politically defensible decision is morally The Right Thing To Do, or that the choice to do harm now will ultimately lead to a greater good down the road. And that’s why presidentin’ is hard.
Jay B.
Oy. But it’s a handfull of coal-state Dems and the Chamber of Commerce and the entire GOP. They’ve ALREADY made his Administration useless. How much worse can it get? And now that they’ve made him jump, like all the other times, you think it’s going to stop there? And then, once the next “facts be damned” reality check comes into play on regulation — and the air we breathe — why the hell do you think the result will be any different? They had made promises to the American Lung Association, so they’d hold off on lawsuits. And then they broke ’em. At least the legal profession will have a slight uptick in employment options.
At what point do reality and facts matter politically? If none, then what’s the fucking point?
FlipYrWhig
@Jay B.: I think we’re stuck like this for as long as the Democratic party is an uneasy coalition that can, when everything breaks their way, assemble a majority. There will keep being some bloc that threatens to withhold support for something until it’s suitably placated. It won’t matter what the reality and facts are, no. I don’t think it’s a pretty picture. But it’s not new, either, or else there wouldn’t have been odious concessions on anti-lynching legislation in order to get New Deal initiatives passed. Cynical politicians wanting odious things and being on the “good guy” side all the while… it’s a sadly timeless tale.
FlipYrWhig
@Jay B.: Also, the effect of your selecting what you did from my comment is to remove the part where I spell out that moves that are politically defensible might well be tangibly, undeniably, harmful to actual people. Just because something is politically defensible doesn’t mean that it’s what that politician _ought_ to do–or that it’s even better than straight-out bad. That continual need to sift bad options (the classic case is whether to shoot down the hijacked plane full of innocent people before it hits the city full of innocent people) is probably why presidents age so rapidly.
Corner Stone
@Jay B.: There’s just no end to it.
And what’s the political payoff for the President? Does helping (extremely nominally) Democratic Senators by changing this rule buy him any leverage at all?
Or is it a political chit that was spent just for the goodwill of maybe possibly not harming D elections in these areas?
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
Well, in addition to the Times article, the AP article also frames it as a capitulation to the Republicans.
So the optics still suck, they still reinforce the Republican narrative, and it continues the cuts.
Have we reached 1000 yet?
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone:
Both sound plausible to me. My hunch is that it’s linked to an internal debate about how to balance environmental concerns and “green energy” with manufacturing and mining as areas for stimulating the economy. Green-blue tensions have bedeviled Democrats for decades, e.g., loggers vs. spotted owl.
OzoneR
@Jay B.:
Translation, this says what I want to hear.
Andrew
Eh, I’m usually willing to defend Obama and cut him slack. This EPA smog rule thing isn’t one of those times. It seems like a pretty straightforward cave to industry.
Brad Plumer has a good post on the whole thing up at Ezra Klein’s blog.
Jay B.
@FlipYrWhig:
Doing the right thing here required exactly no votes. If he’s trading this for other votes, that’s a marginal future gain (Levin won’t vote for something? McCaskill owes Obama about five good turns at this point and Manchin is useless) against a very very bad outcome.
Moreover, no one really thinks that Democrats drove the President to do this. After all, what the fuck would it matter if the Senate votes for something one way or another? The House, as is plain, runs the game. And they won’t do shit for any progressive legislation.
There was an almost-unambiguously better option here. He’ll never get the House to do anything he wants. The Senators can stew all the want. There’s an easy-to-defend case it won’t affect jobs at all, and even then there are endlessly better ways to create jobs without fouling the air. And he’ll get attacked over the miserable economy and jobs environment anyway.
Instead of the airliner, he plainly chose to nuke the city while letting the airliner crash on its own.
Jay B.
@OzoneR:
As opposed to you citing Sherrod Brown. Really, the EPA itself says the savings of this reform would more than offset the costs to business. And, of course, most big business is actually sitting on piles of cash — they should be spending it, that’d actually help. This is pretty basic and true. I don’t figure that facts and observable reality should get in your way, but yes, people generally approve things they agree with.
FlipYrWhig
@Jay B.: My guess is that he wanted to throw a sop to this somewhat motley group of Democrats in advance of, and perhaps to secure their support of, some provisions in the upcoming Big Jobs Plan. It kind of reminds me of the likewise motley group of Senate Democrats who implored him not to have a vote on ending the upper-income tax cuts before Election Day 2010, a cohort that included some staunch liberals. When things like this go down, my hunch is that something complicated, or local/parochial instead of ideological, is getting hashed out behind the scenes. I react that way even _more_ so when the better politics of the better option seem so obvious. So often around here I think, “This seems stupid, I wonder what besides stupidity or venality could explain it.” That to me is a more interesting conversation than, “This seems stupid, can I get an Amen?”
FlipYrWhig
@Jay B.: I can imagine something like the group of senators saying, “You know, when you roll out the big jobs plan, we really want to be able to smile to the cameras and talk about how great it is. But we’re worried that when you talk about green jobs, our miners and manufacturers can get the impression that they’re getting left behind. If we can relax the line on this emissions standard, they’d feel less under the gun, and so would we.” Like I said before, trading the environment for decent-paying heavy-industry jobs is old news in Democratic politics, and there’s a whole class-resentment angle to it too. I skew environmentalist rather than industrial-labor myself, but that’s a tough pitch — in symbolism, even if it has nothing to do with the particulars of this rule — across a lot of the Democratic map.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: Manchin and McCaskill aren’t supporting a damn thing Obama is going to propose. McCaskill is done for and Manchin will either register as an R or be the defacto R in the D camp.
Baucus may drag feet but be able to deal. Rockefeller and Levin will go along with any Obama plan.
So, if our theory is accurate, what is Obama buying?
Jay B.
@FlipYrWhig:
I might even buy the labor angle, if it wasn’t for the fact that the AFL-CIO is already troubled by rumors that in the big jobs package Obama will be calling for a program similar to the Georgia Works “job training for free”. Maybe that’s what Obama is securing with torpedoing the Clean Air deal — something that actual labor will hate more than any environmental regulations the EPA could dream up.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: This is purely speculative, but I think he’s attempting to head off rhetoric and political positioning that politicians from mining and heavy-industry states would otherwise use to undercut the upcoming jobs plan. My speculation would make more sense if the jobs plan were set to accentuate “green jobs” or otherwise touch upon energy policy. But I obviously have no idea if that’s going to happen.
Jay B.
@OzoneR:
Once again, your unfailing wrongness has been perfectly captured by people who actually know what the fuck they’re talking about.
FlipYrWhig
@Jay B.: I wondered about labor too, especially after Trumka ripped Obama the other day, but I hadn’t followed anything from the rumor mill.
Corner Stone
@FlipYrWhig: Trumka’s another emoprog PL’er who should shut his piehole. I’m tired of hearing his piffle.
FlipYrWhig
@Corner Stone: What I saw of his remarks seemed to be more like a warning shot than a criticism about current policy, but I’d never deny that he had an important voice, whether supportive or critical.
fourmorewars
Um, this is coming in rather late, but the correct wording is
‘There’s battle lines being drawn’
Ya whippersnapper.
El Cid
@FlipYrWhig:
I don’t agree with the notion that people here would agree on what the best policies would be were they all possible, and therefore it’s all about who’s the Most Mature and Most Realistic about what to do; what’s more, I think that if you’ll look around, these sorts of terms are used even outside the Balloon Juice environs.
Yes — there are actually places in the world outside this comments sections in which terms like “liberal” and “left” and “moderate” are used. Really, there are.
For example, I argue NAFTA was a shitty, harmful, and hurtful policy. Lots of people, liberals included, thought it was great. That was a policy disagreement, including an analysis disagreement. It wasn’t a disagreement over what could be done and how best to get there. There really was a disagreement.
Even on this blog, in the comments, I don’t think there’s the policy-agreement-but-how-do-we-mature-people-get-there background. It’s not meaningful that people might have the same ‘goals’ or ‘ideals’ — most people of any political persuasion do; most frequently there’s a disagreement about what reality is. There are severe clashes over what should be done, above and beyond questions about what could be passed right now.
The point, however, is the same, at root: a policy which makes sense gets to be labeled “liberal” or “left”, and so do the people backing them, not because of the policy content or correctness, but how they slot in with the current political spectrum.
Of course, in the end, this is a blog’s comments section, and not merely some political organizing forum, so it’s quite okay for people to analyze things or suggest policies or reason things out without regard to whether or not it might pass, or be related closely to Obama or not, and so forth.
FlipYrWhig
@El Cid: FYWP ate my long response. Dagnabit it. Well, suffice it to say, I disagree, and while I know it’s quixotic, I still want to throw the flag any time disputes that are at heart about confrontation vs. accommodation gets treated as “left” vs. “right”/”moderate”/ “centrist.”