Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

In my day, never was longer.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

We won’t go back.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

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164Comments

  3. 3.

    geg6

    Oh gawd. I LOVE Honey Nut Cheerios. Probably the only cereal I like. And now Mittens has to go and ruin that. Is there no length he won’t go to in order to screw us 47%ers?

    –shakes fist at Mr. 47%

  5. 5.

    YellowJournalism

    Best part of that interview was when his wife called themselves “nobodies” after the loss.

  8. 8.

    schrodinger's cat

    Is Mitt planning to run for the Senate seat in Mass? Why is he giving Fox News Sunday an interview?

  10. 10.

    Linda Featheringill

    Actually, it seems like a very reasonable answer to what was probably a stupid question, something like “How does it feel . . . ?”

    Running for prez of the US is a very rough game and all the participants walk away with injuries, even the winners.

  13. 13.

    Roger Moore

    @Ben Cisco:

    Well, he hasn’t gone all Johnny Walnuts on us (yet).

    He doesn’t have Mr. POW’s platform. If he were in the Senate and got invited to be on Sunday shows every week, he’d be shaking his closed manipulator at the clouds.

    @Redshirt:

    Are Mormon Bishops allowed to eat honey?

    Sure. But that’s not for Mitt anyway. He gets all the energy he needs through a NEMA 5-15.

  14. 14.

    burnspbesq

    On a similarly cheery note, today is the 40th anniversary of the release of the most overhyped train-wreck of an album in the history of rock music.

    I was a senior in high school when the abomination was turned loose on an unsuspecting world. I guess I’m fucking old.

    You will not EVER see me on the dark side of the moon.

  18. 18.

    schrodinger's cat

    @burnspbesq: One thing you have in common with DougJ, not a Floyd fan. Husband cat is crazy about them, as for me, I am neutral. I do like the Wall, better.

  19. 19.

    shortstop

    @YellowJournalism: Her comments are really revealing:

    Ann Romney described the “adjustment” she and her husband made — going from being surrounding by crowds and Secret Service agents to, after Mitt Romney’s loss in November, being by themselves again. She likened it to serving in different positions in their church.
    “In our church, we’re used to serving and you know, you can be in a very high position, but you recognize you’re serving. And now all of a sudden, you’re released and you’re nobody,” she said. “And we’re used to that. It’s like we came and stepped forward to serve. And you know, the other part of it was an amazing thing, and it was really quite a lot of energy and a lot of passion and a lot of — a lot of people around us and all of a sudden, it was nothing.”
    She added: “But the good news is fortunately we like each other.”

  20. 20.

    Zifnab

    @Ben Cisco: Say what you will of Mitt Romney, but he’s been an infinitely better sport about the whole “I lost to a black guy while running for President” than Old Man McCain.

    Probably helps that Romney isn’t still holding any kind of political office.

  21. 21.

    Roger Moore

    @MikeJ:

    Bees are a big deal to mormons.

    Sure, but that’s their social/political structure, not necessarily their honey. That said, ISTR that there was a period when the Mormons were working very hard toward autarky, and one of their projects was to replace imported sugar with locally produced sweeteners. I can’t imagine that they’d turn their noses up at honey. Also, FWIW, Mormons are notorious for a having a weakness for sweets; it’s one of the few vices the church allows.

  24. 24.

    shortstop

    @Linda Featheringill: Fortunately, no one ever held a gun to the head of someone and forced him/her to run for prez, just as no one forced that Republican operative to wear a purple heart-decorated band-aid to mock John Kerry’s war service.

  25. 25.

    dmsilev

    @shortstop:

    She added: “But the good news is fortunately we like each other.”

    I guess that’s something, because nobody else likes them.

  26. 26.

    shortstop

    @dmsilev: And doesn’t that line sound forced? The whole quote is creepy, not least because they’re still saying that Mitt’s unjustified ambition to be prez was really “service” to the nation.

  27. 27.

    SFAW

    So, like, I’m on this roller coaster ride, OK? And, like Ann is all “I can’t be-LIEVE that blah person wants to go on OUR RIDE, M-KAY? Don’t they, like, know their place and stuff? ZOMG!” And I’m, like, “Fer-rillz!” and Ann is all, like, “Whyn’t ya DO something about it, Biff Mitt? Can’t you and the rest of the Tagglings just, like, shun them? Like in ‘Mean Girls’? I mean srsly!” and I’m all like “You are SO right, namean!”
    .
    .
    .
    Who knew that, when we re-elected the Kenyan Mooslim Usurper, that we weren’t rejecting a 65-year-old arrogant, entitled, lying prick, but rather, a 14-year-old girl from the “In” crowd.

    With apologies to 14-year-old girls – mean or not – everywhere.

  31. 31.

    the Conster

    Now y’all know why his approval rating was somewhere in the basement when he left us Massachusetts folk behind. To know him is to loathe him.

  32. 32.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    Say what you will of Mitt Romney, but he’s been an infinitely better sport about the whole “I lost to a black guy while running for President” than Old Man McCain.
    Probably helps that Romney isn’t still holding any kind of political office.

    @Zifnab: Helps that he isn’t given much of a mouthpiece. McCain has one 24/7.

    But I don’t think his problem is with Obama as such. Obama has money. I think his problem is with the people who voted for the President. The few interviews he’s been permitted since cratering would indicate he’s not a good sport about that at all.

    We dodged a bullet with that guy. Even McCain, who is a psycho, doesn’t have the same sneering contempt for the middle class that Romney does.

  33. 33.

    1bb3

    @Ben Cisco: Yeah, but if had been a little more Mavericky and stand-uppy to his party’s less tolerant contingent, y’know, show some cojonies, he might have challenged Obama for the Big Middle. Instead he got the Big Widdle. We can only hope that it was Seamus providing the “trickle down” here. Metaphorically, of course.

    So why doesn’t he cheer himself up by foreclosing on some little old lady (no, not Anne), or destroying a community by shutting down a factory or two, or firing his domestic staff? C’mon Mitt, think, act! Go Galt!

  37. 37.

    Roger Moore

    @West of the Cascades:

    Why is Mitt going for a photo-op cereal-buying trip instead of sending the Help (or Ann) out for it?

    Because he’s an attention whore who’s hoping to have his picture taken and his name back in the news, however briefly. SATSQ. Or maybe Ann is nagging him for losing to the Kenyan Usurper, and shopping is a convenient excuse to get out of the house.

  38. 38.

    jibeaux

    Okay, but that doesn’t mean you have to work at Blockbuster, Mitt. Go ride up and down the car elevator a few times.

  39. 39.

    Robin G.

    @Zifnab: I think it’s mostly that Romney doesn’t have to talk to the Little People anymore (which I’m sure comes as a relief to him). I got the impression that by the end he was all too ready to go back to his bubble and stop feigning interest in the unwashed masses. But behind closed doors, he’s probably every bit as much as a dick as McCain.

  40. 40.

    SFAW

    @shortstop:

    “In our church, we’re used to serving and you know, you can be in a very high position, but you recognize you’re serving. And now all of a sudden, you’re released and you’re nobody,”

    Fuck you, Ann.

    The UUs I know serve others a lot more than you ever will, and none of them expects anyone to kiss their ring/ass/money – they do it because it’s what they do. And they don’t try to convert Jews (or anyone from any other religion) posthumously, either.

    Zane Grey had it right, you self-important, entitled, mean, female-version-of-prick-ish piece of shit.

    So, to repeat, in the words of the immortal EVERYONE WHO EVER INTELLIGENTLY ASSESSED YOU AND YOUR DICKISH HUSBAND: fuck you.

    ETA: And, no, that wasn’t cathartic. At least, not for me.

  41. 41.

    Origuy

    I’m leaving for Moscow today, for two weeks. A Russian-American friend is back there visiting her mother. She invited me to stay with them, but decided that her mother’s apartment was too small and one of her dogs was too aggressive. So I’m staying with a friend of her mother.
    I speak a little Russian, but my friend will be around most of the time.
    Anybody have suggestions beside the obvious (Krimlin, museums, etc.) which I will certainly do?

  43. 43.

    bemused

    Mitt who?

    No one has missed him, not even the Republicans. CPAC doesn’t really count.

  45. 45.

    TooManyJens

    @Zifnab:

    Say what you will of Mitt Romney, but he’s been an infinitely better sport about the whole “I lost to a black guy while running for President” than Old Man McCain.

    True. Though that bar is so low even Hermes Conrad couldn’t limbo under it.

  48. 48.

    Waynski

    @Forum Transmitted Disease:

    But I don’t think his problem is with Obama as such.

    I think he has an equal amount of contempt for both Obama and the public. Remember the look on his face when he thought he had trapped Obama on Benghazi during the debate? It’s almost as if he was saying, “I’ve got you now, you miserable NiClang.” That made it all the more priceless when he got his ass handed to him.

  53. 53.

    geg6

    @Forum Transmitted Disease:

    There’s no accounting for the musical tastes of Juicers. ;-) Look at Cole, for fuck’s sake. He fucking likes the Grateful Dead. So much so, that he commissioned T&H to immortalize them to display in his living room!

    The Grateful Dead!

    –shudders with horror

  55. 55.

    Mike in NC

    We haven’t heard the last from the odious Lord & Lady Rmoney. After he pops up at CPAC the Villagers will come courting them once again, you can bank on that. Maybe a recurring guest spot on FOX News. They lack the self-awareness to merely stay out of the spotlight and count their filthy lucre.

  56. 56.

    Kirbster

    Cheerios (I don’t know about the Honey Nut ones) are on sale at CVS this week, 2 for $6, plus $2 “extrabucks” back on your CVS loyalty card. Mitt’s just being thrifty. I don’t think it’s a staged photo op and I don’t begrudge him the right to buy his cereal on sale.

  57. 57.

    danielx

    Actually Mittens sounds remarkably composed and realistic about the loss, but then he’s got $300 million socked away for a rainy century with which to console himself. Besides, with Tip, Rabid, Biff, Moxie and Pepsi waiting in the wings you can betcherass we haven’t heard the last of the Romneys, politically speaking.

  59. 59.

    Eric U.

    my wife listens to “the best of the ’80s” on Pandora. I occasionally “fix” it for her by deleting songs by Rush, Journey, and whatever else miserable over-played nonsense they put on there.

  63. 63.

    TaMara (BHF)

    Damn, all the good comments are already taken. “He’s shopping, it looked like he was working at CVS” “Who buys groceries at CVS?” (elitists, that’s who) “he’s ruined honey nut cheerios now”

    That’s what happens when you come late to a thread.

  66. 66.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    There’s no accounting for the musical tastes of Juicers. ;-) Look at Cole, for fuck’s sake. He fucking likes the Grateful Dead. So much so, that he commissioned T&H to immortalize them to display in his living room!

    The Grateful Dead!

    –shudders with horror

    @geg6: You have my full agreement on that. You want to talk “worst band of all time”, that’s it right there.

  70. 70.

    LGRooney

    Any connection to the fact that in the last thread we had someone mentioning McAuliffe selling his anal crust for money and in this thread we have a picture of a very wealthy man holding boxes of Cheeri-Os?

  71. 71.

    Redshirt

    FYI all – this picture is from right after the election. So it’s not like it’s a recent photo op so we all remember the glorious name of Mittens “The Willard” R-Money.

  72. 72.

    MomSense

    @SFAW:

    Are you a UU?

    I am–actually started reading this blog because of the “Shock Troops for the Unitarian Jihad” tagline.

  73. 73.

    Mandalay

    @shortstop:

    It’s like we came and stepped forward to serve.

    This sets my bullshitometer off.

    Unpaid volunteers in the community serve. A waiter in Denny’s serves. Roger Federer serves. A high school dropout who signs up to fight in Afghanistan “serves”.

    But Mitt Romney definitely did not run for president to “serve”. That wasn’t even on the radar. He ran because he wanted the job.

    Nobody runs for president “to serve”. It’s just bullshit.

  76. 76.

    Tonal Crow

    And speaking of train wrecks, there’s Bobo’s Friday column. In it, he extols the virtues of “fus[ing] the academic and the moral” because this leads to “these awesome motivation explosions”. However, he ran out of motivation before he ran out of print, making his last paragraph into one of the most beautiful examples of unintentional irony I’ve ever seen. Can we make “awesome motivation explosions” a key-string here?

  77. 77.

    LGRooney

    @Origuy: Sorry. I studied there 25 years ago. I went back to visit 10 years ago for the first time since my studies. The place had changed just enough that I was utterly confounded. It has since changed enough from that visit, per my State Dept. buddies there now, that I am useless as a tourist guide.

  78. 78.

    SFAW

    @Forum Transmitted Disease:

    You want to talk “worst band of all time”, that’s it right there.

    Ace
    Starland Vocal Band
    Creed
    1910 Fruitgum Company
    The Archies

    The Dead are not everyone’s cup o’ tea, but they’re better than a lot of crap you hear, past and present.

  79. 79.

    geg6

    @catclub:

    I don’t eat cereal but if I’m forced to, it’s Honey Nut Cheerios. I hate breakfast, pretty much. Now brunch….

  83. 83.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    @SFAW: I would gleefully listen to one month solid – every single workday, every weekend, no escape – of any one of those bands you listed than sit through one bootleg Dead tape.

  84. 84.

    rachel

    Now I’ll remember that Mitt Romney is not POTUS every time I eat Honey Nut Cheerios. Bonus for me ’cause I liked them already.

  85. 85.

    SFAW

    @MomSense:
    No, I’m a devout atheist (although that isn’t a barrier to entry, as far as UUs are concerned).

    Mrs. SFAW is UU, as are our kids. I don’t really consider UUs a religion, but their ethos is something I wish more “religions” would adopt. Instead of the Judean-People’s-Front bullshit.

  89. 89.

    NonyNony

    @geg6:

    Personally, if forced to choose, I’d choose Creed over the Dead. Any day.

    Now I have to question any an all statements you make in the future.

    The Dead isn’t my cuppa tea, but damn. I’d rather have my eyes scooped out with a teaspoon than listen to Creed ever again.

  90. 90.

    SFAW

    @geg6:

    As I said, they’re not for everybody. (I’m actually not a big fan of theirs, but I appreciate a fair amount of their stuff. Maybe if I had smoked or tripped more in college …)

    ETA: In case it wasn’t obvious, I was talkin’ ’bout The Dead, not Stapp’N’Co.

  91. 91.

    shortstop

    @Forum Transmitted Disease: I wasn’t going to get involved in this, but the only way I can stand Geddy Lee’s voice without wishing for my own sudden death is via my friend Margaret’s uncannily accurate imitation of him. When she shrieks “PhiLOSophers and PLOUGHmen!” I crack the hell up every time.

  92. 92.

    catclub

    @Tonal Crow: In it, he extols the virtues of “fus[ing] the academic and the moral”

    I am sure this is totally unrelated to his ‘academic’ work at Yale, teaching ‘humility’.

    I do happen to know that humility is listed as the first virtue.

  94. 94.

    geg6

    @NonyNony:

    The Dead isn’t my cuppa tea, but damn. I’d rather have my eyes scooped out with a teaspoon than listen to Creed ever again.

    That’s how I feel about the Dead. And Rush, for that matter.

    I was once “forced” to go to a Dead concert with a guy I was dating at the time. We had a huge fight over monotony of the music, and then over staying there with all the acid heads, smelly people, and outright mentally ill that the entire audience seemed made up of and I walked out and took a bus home.

  96. 96.

    The Moar You Know

    The Dead are not everyone’s cup o’ tea, but they’re better than a lot of crap you hear, past and present.

    @SFAW: As a former professional musician who has had the misfortune to see the Dead live, twice, I can say this:

    1. They can be competent at their instruments.
    2. They were unbelievably unprofessional.

    I’ll put up with hacks, but hacks who take an audience’s money and don’t even try to put on a good show – or even bother to tune their instruments, for that matter – have no excuse for existing.

    Music’s biggest grifters.

  97. 97.

    Hungry Joe

    “Omar comin’!”

    Mitt and Omar (from “The Wire”) love their Honey Nut Cheerios.

    “Mitt comin’!” … Nah. Doesn’t quite work.

  98. 98.

    Hungry Joe

    “Omar comin’!”

    Mitt and Omar (from “The Wire”) love their Honey Nut Cheerios.

    “Mitt comin’!” … Nah. Doesn’t quite work.

  99. 99.

    shortstop

    @SFAW: I was half-serious despite going for the cheap joke. I really was raised UU and retain a very soft spot for all its (obviously) nondogmatic virtues. I love or am close friends with a lot of UUs. But I am not a member of even this freethinking flock any more.

    To give you an idea of the strangeness of the house in which I grew up, my parents were staunch Republicans and longtime UUs. Uh, speaking of roller coaster rides! Now they’re diehard Dems and still UUs. Much more harmonic.

  100. 100.

    SFAW

    @The Moar You Know:

    Never did the live thing, only LPs (just establishing my Old Fart cred), so I can’t really respond.

    Of course, there was a reason I didn’t go to their concerts, something about monotony. It was their studio stuff – well, some of it – that I preferred.

  101. 101.

    SFAW

    @shortstop:

    It was the “too dogmatic” that got me. To quote a former co-worker, re: UUs: “Whatever you believe, we’re OK with that.”

    ETA: Yeah, the cog diss of Republican UUs would be makin’ my braims a-splode.

  103. 103.

    PIGL

    @Forum Transmitted Disease: weird. I can certainly see not liking the Dead, although I like some of their material myself. But worst band in the world? That’s pretty stiff competition, and the band that recorded China Cat Sunflower in Denmark in 1972 …. well, there’s plenty worse bands than that. It’s fine to detest hippyes and tie-die, but that doesn’t make the Dead terrible, anymore than burnsies social challenges in High School make Dark Side of the Moon the worst album of all time.

    The interesting question here is why John Cole is obsessed with music of a peer group 15yrs his senior…..

  105. 105.

    SFAW

    @PIGL:

    It’s fine to detest hippyes and tie-die,

    You have to realize that Forum Transmitted Disease once shot a hippie in Reno, just to watch him tie-dye.

    [No, not original with me, but I do like it.]

  106. 106.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Hungry Joe: “Willard comin’…”

    I’ve been wondering why they would invite a has-been they never liked to CPAC. I can only imagine they think it’s a big ‘fuck you’ to hippies, Obama and Chris Christie.

  109. 109.

    MomSense

    @Scamp Dog:

    Nice!

    @shortstop:

    Depending on your age I can think of three possible congregations where that could actually be true–otherwise HA!

    @SFAW:

    I definitely think it is a religion but the covenant is with each other and not to a creed or dogma. I know lots of Atheist and humanist UUs–some Ministers.

  110. 110.

    burnspbesq

    @geg6:

    Look at Cole, for fuck’s sake. He fucking likes the Grateful Dead

    But he also likes Little Feat, which is a mitigating factor.

  115. 115.

    dr. bloor

    @burnspbesq:

    I was a senior in high school when the abomination was turned loose on an unsuspecting world. I guess I’m fucking old.

    And legions of hapless, tasteless, ignorant old fucks like myself proceeded to keep it on the Billboard charts for 741 weeks.

    I love your material.

  117. 117.

    ? Martin

    Ok, I’m done with this fucking president. ‘Jedi mindmeld’? What the fuck? It’s Jedi mind tricks or Vulcan mindmeld.

    IMPEACH!

  121. 121.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Chris Hayes just called John Roberts’ views on race in America– in a nutshell: if we say we’re a colorblind society, then we are a colorblind society, and legal discussion of race is “sordid”– “shockingly adolescent”. Good on him. Like objectivism, it’s the worldview of an affluent white teenager who can’t figure out what people are whining about.

  123. 123.

    askew

    Did anyone get to see Obama’s press conference on the Sequester? It sounds like he went after the GOP pretty hard. I tried to read about it on DailyKos and the entire thread was about Obama’s secret plan to gut entitlements and implement Simpson-Bowles. Since the most of the remaining posters at DK have pretty much lost their damn minds to ODS, I am assuming they are wrong but would like confirmation.

  124. 124.

    Hill Dweller

    @? Martin: That was a great press conference, especially his rebuttal to Bloomberg’s bullshit, but the minute the President mixed metaphors, I knew the hacks in the WHPC would fixate on it.

  126. 126.

    Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)

    Apropos of nothing, but Mitt Romney’s former campaign advisor has an article up on the Atlantic.

    It’s a long-form piece defending… Lance Armstrong.

  128. 128.

    Patricia Kayden

    @geg6: Funny that I’ve never liked Honey Nut Cheerios (or any other kind of cheerios) so Mittens can use his billions to buy them all up.

    At least he’s smiling in that photo. He probably knows deep down that he’s happier now than he would have been in the White House.

  129. 129.

    beth

    Can someone explain to me how Jessica Yellin got/keeps her job? She has a seat in the White House Press Corps and her big question to the President is “why can’t you keep the leadership in a room until they solve our problems?” Seriously, is she really just a 13 year old girl masquerading as a journalist?

  131. 131.

    ? Martin

    @shortstop: Some. But he’s going to have to come through on getting Prop 8 overturned for Takei, and a targeted tax of 90% of on George Lucas’s assets to be given to the NEA to restore American Exceptionalism in the Arts wouldn’t hurt either.

  133. 133.

    dmsilev

    @? Martin: Completely irrelevant and random tangent: George Takei has spent the last month or so guest-starring (so to speak) in the still-existant Dick Tracy comic strip.

  134. 134.

    bemused

    @MomSense:

    Republican UU’s? I can’t even compute that. You did say they were your grandparents. I doubt there any of those folks around anymore.

    My parents were UU but sent us kids to both UU and Lutheran kid activities. I’m just a non-church goer, wary of joining any organization, people talk too much and take forever to get anything done.

  136. 136.

    Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)

    @Seanly: I like Pink Floyd, too. But if we’re talking boring conversations about music, you can’t choose a better subject than Pink Floyd.

  138. 138.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    And now all of a sudden, you’re released and you’re nobody,” she said.

    Yes, yes you are, Ann.

    “And we’re used to that. It’s like we came and stepped forward to serve.

    And may your noblesse oblige you to shut the fuck up.

  139. 139.

    shortstop

    @bemused: My folks’ congregation still has one or two Republicans wandering around in it.

    wary of joining any organization, people talk too much and take forever to get anything done.

    Ha! And UUs are notorious for this, nearly as bad as academic committees (and there’s lots of crossover on that Venn). You know how they say that wherever you find two Jews, you find three religious opinions? UUs can’t even imagine that kind of unanimity.

  140. 140.

    Hill Dweller

    @beth: Yellin compounded the stupidity by quoting Bloomberg. Although that did lead to the President’s smack down of her bullshit(the best part of the press conference).

  143. 143.

    Hill Dweller

    Apparently Willard criticizes the President in his Fox News interview. He has to be the most tone deaf politician in history.

  146. 146.

    Tuffy

    If you don’t like Dark Side of the Moon, you’re a tone deaf contrarian retarded shithead.

  150. 150.

    Bruce S

    @MomSense:

    “Eisenhower Republicans” – different party, different times.

    My parents were Eisenhower Republicans who fled in 1964 with the advent of Goldwater and never looked back. By ’68 my Dad was furious with Johnson – who he’d supported and expected better of – over Vietnam and supported Gene McCarthy/RFK. By ’72 he had his “dream candidate” – George McGovern, another mild-mannered Midwesterner with a strong moral core. I seriously doubt my Dad liked a candidate that much since Eisenhower himself. Strange but true. The GOP of the fifties is almost as remote as the “party of Lincoln.” For one thing, there were lots of “Eisenhower Republicans” who were strong on civil rights when the Democrats still encompassed the Dixiecrats.

  151. 151.

    Bruce S

    @askew:

    http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2013/03/ezra-klein-gets-one-wrong-he-thinks-what-we-have-is-a-failure-to-communicate.html

    Here’s a link to Brad DeLong – with a long bit from Ezra Klein – that makes it pretty clear that Obama isn’t exactly holding fast on so-called “entitlements.” Gut isn’t the right word, of course. And he’s on record as wanting to cut Medicare big-time – the question being, of course, if this is a rational plan to cut health care costs without cutting benefits or raising costs to recipients. This is complicated stuff and, frankly, it’s just fucking wrong to talk about changing the SS cost-of-living index or attempting to grapple with out-of-control health care costs in the context of this GOP puke-fest. It legitimates shit that isn’t legitimate – the entire deficit hysterics bullshit that Pete Peterson, Simpson, the fake Dem Erskin Bowles, et al. are selling. Poison pill. I want to reform the health care system – of which Medicare is clearly the most cost-effective, efficient piece – but not in the context of deranged, ugly bait-and-switch rhetoric that is totally illegitimate in the context of our present economic dilemma. Obama is a big disappointment on these issues – although I don’t think he’s the arch-villain. But why give this crap any credence when it’s utter bullshit, and can be shown to be such?

  152. 152.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Bruce S:

    And he’s on record as wanting to cut Medicare big-time – the question being, of course, if this is a rational plan to cut health care costs without cutting benefits or raising costs to recipients.

    The answer being, of course, yes, that is clearly the intention, not to deprive sick people of live-giving care.

    frankly, it’s just fucking wrong to talk about changing the SS cost-of-living index or attempting to grapple with out-of-control health care costs in the context of this GOP puke-fest.

    I still think the cost-of-living stuff is intended only to be part of a bigger plan that also institutes a guaranteed minimum benefit.

    I think it’s kind of shrewd to try to turn cut mania into momentum for long-contemplated solutions to health care and elder care: it takes “spending is out of control on Those People!” (which is what Republicans mean) and re-routes it into “spending money stupidly is actually a problem, so as long as we’re looking at the budget, let’s try to fix that problem.”

    The dumb part is letting the whole thing pass for a discussion of how to help the economy recover. But Obama really has been saying, repeatedly lately, that deficit reduction and job creation are not the same thing. I wish Big Media would grasp that themselves.

  153. 153.

    Bruce S

    @FlipYrWhig:

    That’s the intention, but it’s a half-assed way to approach the real problem. For one, the reductions in spending aren’t nearly enough over the long term – and, second, it’s crazy to fall into the “Medicare is a problem” bullshit, when Medicare isn’t the problem at all. The problem is systemic in our health care delivery. It’s not particularly shrewd because, for one, the GOP will play this the way they played previous attempts that focus on reining in Medicare costs – “Death Panels!” etc, ad nauseum. The issue of containing health care costs in the system as a whole needs to be addressed as such. This is Mickey Mouse and won’t get Obama any props. It never does when he falls into the rhetorical paradigm of the assholes like Peterson, Simpson-Bowles, Tea Party Crazies, etc. etc. I just don’t see some brilliant chess game here. It’s lame.

    Also, “chained CPI” is just fucking wrong. If anything, SS should be increased. The only rational response to assholes who want to cut SS – even if it’s cuts in CPI increases – is “Get back to me when Mitt Romney pays the same rate of SS taxes on his income that most of the rest of the country does.” At that point we can talk about any possible changes. Until then, fuck anyone who wants to fuck with Social Security, Obama included.

  154. 154.

    Bruce S

    Incidentally, the current amount of total income not subject to SS tax has doubled since Reagan and Tip O’Neill came up with their fix (due to increased income inequality.) So even Reagan was more “progressive” than this bullshit about chained CPI. Raise the fucking tax levels at least back to what Reagan intended before you come to me with bullshit about cutting the CPI benefits. That’s what’s on the table – it’s wrong.

  155. 155.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Bruce S:

    Also, “chained CPI” is just fucking wrong. If anything, SS should be increased.

    If you institute a guaranteed minimum, it would immediately increase Social Security dramatically at the bottom of the scale. _Then_ you could fiddle with CPI and COLA things as they affect people who are in the middle and upper ends of the scale. (And, yes, much more income should be subject to SS withholding.) The guaranteed minimum benefit was in the Simpson-Bowles commission recommendations. That’s part of the picture, but virtually nobody pays it any attention.

  156. 156.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Bruce S:

    Medicare isn’t the problem at all. The problem is systemic in our health care delivery

    Correct, but that’s also why Medicare is the best blunt instrument for trying to fix that delivery system. The problem is that hospital administrators and medical device manufacturers are a pack of looters and thieves.

  157. 157.

    Bruce S

    By the way, Katherine Sibelius has assented to an utterly toxic and deficit-increasing plan by the Arkansas GOPer Governor to, essentially, privatize Medicaid in the state at the Federal government’s expense. This is an utterly crap idea and moves the ball backward on health care reform. So I wouldn’t assume that “of course” the Obama administration is especially genius when it comes to dealing with these issues across the board. I can’t for the life of me figure out what is in Sibelius’ head to give this GOPer Governor a green-light to replace Medicaid with a private insurance scheme that will cost more and most likely ration care with more profit-seeking zeal. This isn’t a good sign.

    http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2013/02/26/medicaid-game-changer-feds-approve-putting-entire-expansion-population-on-exchange

  159. 159.

    Bruce S

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Leave the SS system alone until the tax base for it is fixed.
    End of story. And fuck Simpson and Bowles. They are frauds. Simpson in particular hates Social Security. That commission was a bad idea that turned into a dismal failure. They need to go home instead of trying to collect speakers fees and garner media attention shilling for Pete Peterson and the like. Obama gets no props for that piece of shit.

  160. 160.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Bruce S:

    Leave the SS system alone until the tax base for it is fixed

    Right. Fix the tax base for it, do a generous minimum benefit, and then figure out what to do to index it to cost of living. I’m not “giving props” for Bowles-Simpson, I’m pointing out that even the notorious thing that everyone hates for sucking so much actually has, as a feature, a steep increase in the minimum benefit, as well as a higher cap. Everyone has decided to focus on the particular device for calculating CPI, but that’s as partial a view as focusing only on the tax effects of cap and trade.

  161. 161.

    Bruce S

    @FlipYrWhig:

    You’re right. I was wrong. But my assumption was based on the fact that you couldn’t tell he’s a “Democrat” from the matter of him pushing the same “plan” that Rick Scott wants to impose in Florida. Erskine Bowles is a “Democrat” as well. Fuck these guys. Frankly, Rick Scott has an excuse. He’s a Republican. What’s Beebe’s?

  162. 162.

    Bruce S

    Incidentally, it seems that it shouldn’t be necessary to say this, but I have been a fervent supporter of Obama since early in 2007, have spent thousands of $$ and countless hours to help him get elected and re-elected, but I don’t feel like I have to come up with rationalizations for all of his policies. The second time I heard him speak in person – in June of 2007 – he was candid that if he got elected he’d be subject to the same pressures of the Oval Office that complicate and compromise every man who sits there. His advice to the room was to keep the pressure on him and hold his feet to the fire if he made it all the way to the Presidency. That the needed change wouldn’t be on him from inside the White House, but on grass-roots social movements pressuring from outside. I take him at his word. His door is open to people like us – he’s intelligent – he can think and listen. But I feel it would be an insult to the man who was running for the office back in ’07 when I got on board with him if I just clapped every time he speaks as POTUS.

  163. 163.

    Bruce S

    @Bruce S:

    “In fairness” apparently the Governor’s excuse is that he’s dealing with a GOP legislature and believes this scheme that raises costs of the program is apparently “philosophically” more appealing to the gaggle of alleged “deficit-hawks” he’s dealing with who apparently never saw a tax give-away to corporations they didn’t like. The notion of privatizing Medicaid as a solution to anything is crazy – and should be treated as such.

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