I’ve been on vacation and most of the news I’ve gotten has been from the USA Today shoved under my door, but it looks like Schaivo 2013, the Sequestering, is going to happen. I snapped this shot going through US Customs on a normal day. I can only imagine the hours it will take to go through that line after a few agents are furloughed. The notion that there’s some “opportunity” in Republicans taking the heat for making airports even more of a nightmare just shows that Eric Cantor is a shorter, less charming version of Newt Gingrich.
Speaking of USA Today, the last issue I saw portrayed Obama as the guy out trying to get the sequester stopped, the nebulous “Congress” as the bad guy (the story pointed out that Congress would keep getting their paychecks no matter what happened, even as their staff had to be laid off). It would be better if the “Republican Congress” was the bad guy, but even USA Today is smart enough to ignore Cantor’s “#Obamaquester” stupidity. Only the DC media is dumb enough to expect that Obama will don his white robe, climb onto Shadowfax, ride up Capitol Hill and force Congress to pass a bill.
...now I try to be amused
Not while the Republican House leadership fancy themselves as Gandalf the Grey shouting “None shall pass!”
Culture of Truth
The sequester is no big deal. If it is, it’s Obama’s fault. But it’s really nothing. Also, Obamaquester. But we can afford these cuts. But blame Obama.
low-tech cyclist
The sequester is imaginary, the CR is real.
Seriously, what’s going to happen at midnight tomorrow night? Nothing, really. Friday morning, government agencies may – if they’ve planned ahead sufficiently – send out notices to employees that they’re being furloughed in 30 days’ time. And any other cuts they institute will take awhile to plan and take effect as well.
So the sequester really doesn’t hit until the end of March.
Meanwhile, on March 27, the current continuing resolution that funds the government – the CR – expires. That means that in order to avoid a complete government shutdown, Congress will have to pass a new CR before that date.
That CR, which will take effect immediately upon passage and Presidential signature, will either include the sequester’s cuts, or some of the sequester’s cuts, or some sequester-like cuts, or no cuts at all.
The new CR will be what determines whether the sequester really happens in any meaningful sense.
The CR is real. The sequester is imaginary.
Chyron HR
What did Republicans do with their time before Twitter hashtags were invented?
Schlemizel
The fact that the GOP has not been successful in blame shifting this issue tells me that there will be a deal. Maybe not before “D” day but soon after.
They are crazy but the leadership is not stupid. Even Can’tor will be able to figure out that they will take the fall for this and need to end it. My guess right now is they will claim they HAVE to capitulate to the Kenyan Usurper in order to prevent the total destruction of the DoD. There will be just enough gooper votes to pass some tax and cut bill that everyone will claim is good enough
Face
I’m not sure what’s more interesting about that picture. The girl staring at her own chest, her ginormous hoop earings, or the need to know what the rest of her shirt says.
Schlemizel
@Chyron HR:
molest pages
low-tech cyclist
@…now I try to be amused:
Of course, they sound more like the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail saying “None shall pass!”
Black Knight: “I’m invincible!”
King Arthur: “You’re a loony.”
Mark S.
@Chyron HR:
Mail out racist newsletters.
peach flavored shampoo
And yet you’d never know this if you watched pretty much any and all network or cable news broadcasts. Every single one, without exception, has painted Friday as Doomsday, becuase ratings and scary and fear and blah presidents and Republicans tell them to.
Howard Beale IV
Anybody in the employ of the government (especially civilian workers for the military) who start whining about being furloughed can perform aerial intercourse of a torus-shaped perambulating pastry. When the economy really tanked back in 2009 I was forced to take a two-week sabbatical. It ain’t the end of the world.
balconesfault
@Culture of Truth:
The second truth of the sequester will be … all agency decisions on which cuts to make will be motivated by partisan politics.
dmsilev
You do have to admit that watching Obama clobber Mitch McConnell and John Boehner with a staff would be deeply satisfying.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Howard Beale IV: As a civilian employee of the military, can I whine about my company going out of business as we don’t have the funds to weather an extended shutdown, or is that off limits too?
Just want to know the limits of acceptable discourse.
Joey Maloney
@dmsilev: You do have to admit that watching Obama clobber Mitch McConnell and John Boehner with a staff would be deeply satisfying.
Can we watch him chop off their limbs one by one instead? “Tis but a scratch!”
JPL
@balconesfault: also, too.. the repubs want to give the President the power to decide what cuts..
Citizen_X
@Schlemizel:
Link, please.
JCJ
Not sure, but I thought taking photos in US Customs was illegal. I get hassled enough when entering the US (they are looking for someone with the same name – what a shock since my parents lacked imagination and named me James Jones – I have been sent for additional questions on multiple occasions) so I would never tempt the powers that be by taking a picture.
Omnes Omnibus
@Howard Beale IV: Okay, per your view, a person who had no power to bring about or prevent the situation and may well have voted for candidates and supported policies that would have prevented this from happening should just suck it up? Why, because you had a bad couple of weeks in 2009? Fucking sad.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@low-tech cyclist: For government employees and prime contractors this is true.
For subs, who do most of the actual work and get paid by primes who have an eye turned towards their profit margins, the sequester hits tomorrow. Some primes (fortunately none of mine) have already cut payments to their subs in anticipation.
Waynski
I think going to sequester is about Boehner managing the monkey house. He had to cave on taxes in January, much to the chagrin of the Planet of the Apes and he knows he’s got to throw those idiots a bone so he can get the CR done next month without losing his speakership. A few weeks of their constituents bitching at them about lost jobs and benefits might be the only way to get these assholes under control. Every counter-factual thing he’s been saying seems designed to appease a bunch of morans who don’t know how the Congress works and for all their braying about the Constitution, it’s pretty clear they haven’t read it. I’m probably wrong, because Republican stupidity knows no bounds these days, but I think this is the prelude to a cave.
ETA – They’re also innumerate and know nothing about economics.
JPL
The President is meeting with Pelosi, Boehner, Reid and McConnell on Friday. I would love to see cameras in the room.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
FTFY.
jibeaux
Was hearing from a federal contractor the other day about how much enormous amounts of staff time they waste figuring out what they’ll do under various different scenarios. If the sequester hits, they do X, if they get a y% cut, they do Z, and etc. forever. Republicans are fond of talking about how businesses need all this “certainty” in their tax planning, why don’t they ever discuss the huge wastes of time that uncertainty in BUDGETS cause?
Cassidy
@low-tech cyclist: It’s actually a pretty big deal. For one, contract employees are going to get nailed first. That’s your MA’s, a lot of admin people, especially in the hospitals, records clerks, etc. Secondly, even with a “well planned” furlough, that’s still a big hit. That’s one day’s pay. it affects leave accrual, sick accrual, retirement dates, etc. Add to that, the avg GS is a GS5, and that’s a significant dent in the paycheck. It also doesn’t help that the various commands want to make sure the burden of keeping things running falls on the GS employees and not inconvenince themselves or the Active Duty folks.
This is going to hurt a lot of people, especially the contract workers. My family will weather it, but my wife and I both work.
@Howard Beale IV: Kindly…no, not kindly…do me a favor: go get something sharp and rusty and jam it right up your ass. Then, while your writhing in pain, get a nice solid piece of rope , performa few round turns on your neck, and leap over a bannister, preferably with enough room to dangle. Be sure to put some plastic sheeting down so it’s easy to clean up when your body voids itself. Your two week “sabbatical” is not an excuse to denigrate or discount the lives of people who, mostly, make less than 30-35k a year. These are working families, myself included.
handsmile
I’d like to question the notion advanced by some above that the sequester is imaginary or that its consequences will not be severe? I’m not at all disputing the good faith of that assessment, but for the past several days, any number of members of the Confederate Party have been making similar claims to their enablers in the Village media. (A tenet of my political faith is that any Republican moving his or her lips is lying.)
President Obama decried the sequester as a “manufactured crisis.” But “imaginary,” “no big deal”? That seems a little rose-tinted to me.
ETA: mistermix: with your first paragraph as caption, that’s a great photograph.
Waynski
@jibeaux:
This. Anybody who has ever had to plan for budget cuts knows it takes an enormous amount of time to figure out how to do the same job with less resources. I’d love to get it through the minds of the smarmy MBA class in this country that less is ALWAYS less.
Dave
Sequester?! I don’t even know her!
Booger
@Waynski: “The Chagrin of The Planet of the Apes” –the non-canonical prequel, amirite?
max
The notion that there’s some “opportunity” in Republicans taking the heat for making airports even more of a nightmare just shows that Eric Cantor is a shorter, less charming version of Newt Gingrich.
‘Newt Gingrich is a horrible egomaniac and hopefully the R’s will never do anything like that again.’
‘Wait until you see the second-stringers. And the third-stringers.’
I can only imagine the hours it will take to go through that line after a few agents are furloughed.
I just checked. Word is that they haven’t officially decided on the policy, but the expectation is that the airports will follow DoD’s lead and everyone will drop to working four days a week. So initially that’s annoying but it can be dealt with. Come the end of March things get more exciting and we see who gets covered by the emergency budget laws and who doesn’t.
That said, the R’s aren’t going to be happy until everyone really hates them so we might as well do this now and get it over with.
max
[‘No bad deals.’]
GregB
So the GOP screams that we need to cut spending for thirty years. Out comes the big sequester meat axe to cut spending and they are freaking out about the damaging consequences of cutting spending.
They are a bunch of lunatics and everyone is starting to see that.
Gin & Tonic
Comment above nails it. This photo is against the law. I’m going to turn you in.
Omnes Omnibus
@GregB: This isn’t from the GOP, but one of my FB friends from undergrad who is a rabid libertarian (and very close to having his posts hidden) was posting this morning about the “fact” that the sequester cuts aren’t actually cuts because of adjustments for inflation and as result they will actually increase spending by about $105 billion. Of course, he is also wont to point out tha the budget deficits ballooned when the US went off the gold standard. All in all, he is not a good advertisement for the education provided by upper echelon liberal arts colleges.
Mandalay
This article explains why the made up word “Obamaquester” won’t stick, yet other made up words such as “Obamacare” endure.
TaMara (BHF)
I’m sticking with this.
“We had to do this to save the people from big baddie Obummer.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Village voice David Ignatius
.
What fucking bubble do these people live in? Obama has failed to show leadership by shoving the horse’s head into the fucking water?
Bulworth
@Chyron HR: Burned witches at the stake.
Howard Beale IV
@Omnes Omnibus; When compared to the millions who lost jobs during that the time a furlough isn’t such a bad outcome now, isn’t it?
Omnes Omnibus
@Bulworth: Silly rabbit. One hangs witches. Burning is for heretics.
Turgidson
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, I’ve seen a couple posts in my FB feed that have posted a chart about how the sequester really just a teensy tiny spending cut, and then ranting about how much of a con job it is that it’s being sold by the media and the political elite as a doomsday scenario when it’s really just a tiny bit of the cutting that REALLY needs to be made if we’re to avoid A SOVEREIGN DEBT CRISIS AND ECONOMIC RUIN!!
The fact that their own doomsday scenario is bullshit is one thing . But more aggravating is the fact that this seriously affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, and less directly affects an order of magnitude beyond that…which matters not to them. It’s all abstract. Just numbers on a chart. ZOMG spending! Yeah, dumbshit, that spending employs a whole shitload of people – and no, they’re not less of a person because they have a government or govt-funded job, asshole. And we currently have high unemployment, if you hadn’t noticed. So, by all means! Let’s lay off some more! Idiots.
Cassidy
@Bulworth: Raise one hand for small gov’t while wielding a vaginal probe with the other.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Obama can never be the white wizard, because, you see…uh…oh, never mind.
/keyboard commando
Bulworth
So a “balanced” combination of very large cuts to Social Security and Medicare and “modest” (meaning very slight or preferably no) increases in revenue. Balanced.
Somebody needs to point out to these folks that Social Security was running surpluses to the tune of $100 billion+ annually for the past two decades and doesn’t need or deserve to be hacked at for the purpose of reducing the deficit, which the past decade has taught us, will, if achieved, only be used as justification to cut marginal tax rates still further.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@low-tech cyclist: Just got off the phone with our largest prime.
For us, it hit this morning. 20% across the board cut. More to come if it’s not resolved by the end of the month.
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Here’s proof half an hour can change your life.
quannlace
If you haven’t realized by now that the man is a complete sociopath…
Omnes Omnibus
@Howard Beale IV:
When it is stupid and unnecessary, it isn’t a good thing. Also, if someone comes home from the doctor with a diagnoses of pneumonia, do you tell them, “Suck it up, at least you don’t have lung cancer?”
minutemaid
lol…yea it is so gonna happen. I will bet you gloom porn addicts $1000 it will not happen.
Mistermix following in the foot steps of Wr0ng on Everything Cole. I’ve been waiting for Cole to waddle in here to talk about how it’s soooo gonna happen.
You people just never learn. After each manufactured crisis suddenly gets resolved at the last minute when the GOP cannot squeeze any more fundraising and primary avoidance out of it you instantly forget and get all worked up over the next manufactured crisis convinced its for real this time. Fools.
ericblair
@handsmile:
Having a manufactured crisis and a serious crisis are two different things. Apparently, Obama’s not meeting with congressional leaders until Friday, so looks like sequestration is going to kick in.
Boehner is the shittiest and most cowardly speaker in quite a while, and is the prime cause of this. The teabagger congresscritters are insane, don’t understand what they’re doing or the consequences, and out of control. Boehner can’t bring them under control and doesn’t have the nads to toss them over the side and work with Pelosi, so it looks like he’s just flailing around hoping for some sort of fucking miracle.
jibeaux
@Omnes Omnibus: Funny, I thought the whole point of the sequester as being specifically designed to be so toxic to all parties that it would force good-faith negotiations. Kind of like those deals people make where they have to donate money to the KKK if they don’t meet their weight loss goals or whatever. I guess I completely misunderestimated the whole mechanism!
Turgidson
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Jesus fucking Christ, has that dipshit ever read the Constitution? Taken a civics class? Anything? If Obama could just get Congress to do something reasonable, he would have done it by now. The Village gasbags talk about this as if Obama is just kicking back in a hammock, with various tools at his disposal to solve the situation, and is simply refusing to bother. Firm hand on the steering wheel? WTF? Sure, yeah, just walk into Boehner’s office and say “I’ll take it from here, Speaker” and presto, change-o, the teabaggers stop being a bunch of braindead nitwits who are eager to let the nation burn to stick it to Obama? Will any Villager in good standing follow Mann and Ornstein’s lead and just admit it’s the fucking teabaggers that are the cause of all of this nonsense? Ever?
These fucking people. Do they even hear themselves talk, or read their own drivel? Fuckin a.
and yeah, what in fucking fuck does Social Security have to do with anything?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@ericblair:
Shooting yourself in the foot still means you have to go to the emergency room.
Omnes Omnibus
@jibeaux: Fact and logic based arguments go nowhere with crazy libertarians. Nor with Villagers.
dmsilev
@Turgidson: It could be worse. It could always be worse. Take, for example, Bob Woodward this morning:
Does Woodward understand that under the Constitution, appropriating funds is explicitly Congress’s job? Does he care?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@dmsilev: The president could always sell stuff.
Cassidy
Jim, Foolish Literalist
That order, and especially the “even”, should tell everybody everything they need to know about Booby Woodward, Stenographer to the Stars.
Cassidy
I really wish he would/ could do something to target the cuts in red districts. Why should the rest of the country have to suffer for those assholes choices? Hell, if the RIF goes into effect, it’d be nice if they could somehow targte GOP voters.
Wishful thinking, I know. Stupid should have consequences.
ericblair
@dmsilev:
Yeah, he wasn’t going to let some pesky appropriations laws get in the way of shipping weapons to Iran. What?
Xantar
@Turgidson:
I think many of the Villagers genuinely think the President is a king and should act like one. They long for it, in fact.
Omnes Omnibus
@dmsilev: I liked Woodward better when he was Robert Redford. I wonder how much of Woodward’s enduring status is due to people conflating him with the Woodward character in the film.
@Xantar: It is much harder to be a courtier without a royal court.
peach flavored shampoo
Being a Kenyan citizen, can Obama even get a DC driver’s license?
danimal
@Waynski: I pretty much agree with all of this. Boehner’s being semi-responsible, in the sense that a debt limit crisis would have been catastrophic, while a sequester crisis can be undone within a month after public pressure chastens the congresscritters who want to be re-elected.
Apropos of nothing, but for LOTR references, I think Eric Cantor = Grima Wormtongue.
Hoodie
@dmsilev: The Navy made the request to cancel the trip based on budget constraints, guess they didn’t think it was that essential compared to current obligations elsewhere. Woodward’s never one to let facts get in the way of a “I was there when a Great Man was being great” bullshit story, i.e., Obama is supposed to waste scarce resources sending an aircraft carrier to the Gulf just to prove how big his dick is. Woodward is a courtier, so his life’s work lies in dropping names and his proximity to them. It’s pretty disgusting the current hardon he has about Obama, I guess he’s pissed because he doesn’t have access.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@dmsilev: No. Woodward has some kind of issue with Obama. I don’t know specifically what it is but it qualifies as ODS, big time.
lojasmo
@Howard Beale IV:
I chuckled.
Birthmarker
My extremely conservative fb feed shows a poster that says, the first firings should be 535 members of Congress. Others are chiming in, Amen.
Obamaquester sounds like a superhero. Boehnerquester sounds like evil weaponry.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: The movie was certainly a big part of creating his reputation, but nobody talks about Bernstein. Woodward has dedicated his post-Mark Felt life to being the greatest leakee-courtier of the Establishment.
PeakVT
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Woodward probably doesn’t feel like he was made enough of an insider. Personal butthurt, in other words.
Cassidy
@PeakVT: Woodward got significant access to write a best selling book about the SF campaign in Afghanistan with the Northern Alliance. It was actually well written. I’m guessing he’s pissed because he hasn’t been allowed to cash in on all the SOF stuff that’s happened under Obama.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
I think Woodward is right. Obama needs to sell arms to Iran to fund the programs he doesn’t want cut. It worked so well when Reagan did it!
Roger Moore
@Xantar:
They apparently don’t know that in England, at least, the King wasn’t free to do as he wished. If he needed money for something, he could either pay for it out of his own pocket or he had to go hat in hand to Parliament to ask for tax money. ETA: and even Louis XVI had to call the Estates General to try to raise funds when France was irretrievably broke.
danimal
@Cassidy: I think Woodward’s always been a moderate Republican, or at least has always had the worldview of a moderate Republican.
And Obama is forcing the Bob Woodwards of the Beltway to choose between the evil, pacifist, statist IslamoKenyanNaziSocialism and the bone-stupid Christianist conservatives. There are no more Bob Doles (national, rational Republicans) to lead the Bob Woodwards out of this quandary. And so they rage.
David in NY
Well, if they don’t make a deal soon, I’m going to be (partly) sequestered. We are unionized here, and the contract provides for the newest hires to be laid off in these circumstances. But those hires are the ones who can least afford it — supporting kids, a mortgage, and stuff that doesn’t give them much flexibility. We’re working on a voluntary furlough system, in which the older guys would probably participate more because they’ve got better economic circumstances, but that may not be enough to cover the decrease in our budget. Also, health insurance will continue, but my premium portion will come out of pocket — and my lovely spouse has scheduled hip surgery for May.
This may be doable, but some work won’t get done, and people’s spending will certainly be affected and it will screw up schedules to a fare-thee-well. Would be nice if Republicans were not certifiable.
Omnes Omnibus
Did a Tom Levenson post just get eated?
waynski
Obama gave access to Michael Lewis. Not Woodward. Professional jealousy and bitter resentment. All you need to know about Dauphin Bobby.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
Tom’s post got bigfooted by Kay’s, so I think he probably withdrew it for a while so we wouldn’t have two monster posts to deal with at the same time.
catclub
@lojasmo: but isn’t perambulating walking? It should be rotating.
handsmile
As Monarch of the Village media, no one is more outraged than Woodward the First about the Obama’s administration’s reluctance to pay homage.
When that court page Ed Henry complains about lack of access people snicker, but from his throne room at Kaplan TPD, King Bob expects his denunciations to be transcribed and proclaimed by the Village criers (e.g., loyal courtier David Ignatius today).
Versailles on the Potomac is under siege, and like all aristocrats they find the peasants (and their President) revolting.
Omnes Omnibus
@waynski: Lewis was a better choice.
catclub
@peach flavored shampoo: “can Obama even get a DC driver’s license? ”
Aren’t there places where all the taxi drivers are from Somalia or Ethiopia?
lojasmo
@catclub:
Maybe trundling?
raven
@catclub: Yea, Somalia and Ethiopia.
Turgidson
@danimal:
And hilariously, I always thought Dole was kind of an asshole when he was on the scene. A reasonably principled, sane asshole who deserved respect, but still an asshole, and with bad ideas for where to take the country.
He’s fucking Tickle Me Elmo compared to the House GOP ogres we’re dealing with today.
FlipYrWhig
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Here’s the thing with analogies. When they aren’t analogous, they’re useless. There’s no steering wheel, or, if there is, it’s not attached to anything. You can’t just assume a hypothetical instrument that controls things, then complain that the president isn’t using it. That’s the whole fucking problem–there’s no instrument that controls things.
You might as well say “The political system is like a brick. In my analogy, the president should stop the brick from being a brick.”
David in NY
@Turgidson: Dole had a mean sense of humor (and maybe a mean personality), funnier but often as misguided as the teahadists of today. But he knew how to compromise and actually deal with problems — not just use them as opportunities to give rich people more money. Last time I heard him in office, I was amazed how sensible he was.
Omnes Omnibus
@Turgidson: @David in NY: Dole was someone who functioned in the real world. I disagreed with his analysis of most issues and the solutions he proposed to problems, but, since he was reality-based, one could work with him, disagree with him, and ultimately co-exist with him. Those Republicans are basically gone now.
David in NY
@Birthmarker:
Funny, I’ve seen that one on my liberal feed. I would have added that just cutting their pensions in half would probably do the trick, but I’m not really for cutting people’s pensions.
I would suggest furloughing them for a day a week, but they don’t work more than four days anyway — oh, wait, that’s a feature not a bug, might as well just pay them for the time they work.
David in NY
@Omnes Omnibus: Very odd that we can be sad to see him gone. Other guys, Jerry Ford, e.g., were dolts in Congress, but look pretty good in retrospect.
Berial
It’s all the Republican’s fault, everyone will believe that! Except there are ALREADY mainstream sources putting the blame on Obama.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/billfrezza/2013/02/27/sequester-this-president-obamas-colossal-media-blunder/
Check it out! It’s all Obama’s fault of course.
As bad as the Forbes mess is the comments on the Google+ topic I first saw it at were worse. These people simply cannot accept that anything ‘bad’ can be Republicans fault. Simply cannot.
Howard Beale IV
@Omnes Omnibus: Sounds like you need a good dose of the Serenity Prayer. And if you thinks things are bad now, just wait.
Birthmarker
@David in NY: This being on my feed is equavalent to denying
Jesus. When the repubs have lost my fb feed, they have lost America.
BH in MA
Well, this photo and thought experiment was all I needed to convince my wife that we shouldn’t travel by air this April vacation. Last year our family and another (4 adults, 1 teenager and 4 kids ages 8-11) went through JFK customs with multiple planeloads of people. The crowd was spilling into the stairwell/escalator area. All we had to deal with was the wait, but there were plenty of others around us who had to make connecting flights, etc. All I had to say to my wife was, “Remember JFK customs last year? Imagine that with fewer inspectors. Imagine the TSA screening area with fewer screeners,” and that was that.
I may write a letter or three addressed to airline CEOs and tell them of our decision to forgo $2,500 in air travel because of the sequester and suggest that they use their more powerful voices to urge Congress to get its act together.