Well! How is your local news covering the shutdown? My media market paper also features a photo of Boehner, in which he looks somewhat poleaxed, with Cantor lurking in the background.
RE: the photo above, via TPM:
Under the headline “House of Turds,” the latest cover of the New York Daily News shows Boehner seated at the Lincoln Memorial with blood dripping from his hands — a send-up of the popular Netflix series “House of Cards.”
Uh, I don’t think that’s supposed to be blood…
Also, my local news channel app just informed me that President Obama will address the government shutdown in a statement at 12:25. Good. I’m hoping he takes a tone similar to yesterday’s, in which he made it clear who the miscreants are. He didn’t sound ready to negotiate with the anarchist wing of the plutocrat party then, and I sincerely hope he holds firm today.
Please feel free to discuss whatever.
ruemara
If he calls for drone strikes against the Teahadists, I’d be amenable.
NotMax
Yes, actually saw a comment elsewhere claiming that using the .gov website secretly registers you as Muslim.
If only it could be harnessed, stupidity would provide an infinite source of energy.
drkrick
@NotMax: Remember when we thought there might be such a thing as peak wingnut?
Botsplainer
The morning three hour hate radio show (with a new, wingnuttier host) that precede’s Limbaugh’s 3 hour hate had an interesting change now that Kentucky’s exchanges are out. Now we’re back to the ideology argument instead of the failure argument, with bold predictions about how these rates won’t/can’t hold up over the long term.
Mojotron
Give or take a percentage point, there’s that number again. And again: By 64 percent to 27 percent, voters don’t want Congress to block an increase in the nation’s $16.7 trillion federal borrowing limit as a way to thwart implementation of the health-care law.
Joel
Something tells me that NYDN cover was post editorial intervention, because there’s another T-word that rhymes better.
kindness
That ‘reasonable’ and ‘responsible’ stenographers decry that Democrats won’t unilaterally surrender and call that compromise suggests to me that the nation does not have a proper supply of torches and pitchforks.
MattF
A little NYC touch in that picture– he’s wearing the Ohio version of a nice suit.
The Dangerman
Repeating a comment from the previous thread, Covered CA seems to work better in IE than Chrome (it could also be that I had more coffee prior to using IE).
Many options to review so I didn’t sign up for anything, but the costs for Silver were about half of what I have been paying for shit catastrophic coverage. Can hardly wait for 1/Jan to come around (assuming we didn’t default and in the midst of a hot war, of course).
LAC
Why wouldn’t Obama be the same? What is he going to do, announce a repeal of the ACA?really?
Roger Moore
Shouldn’t that be “House of ‘Tards”? Otherwise it’s pretty good- and this is coming from a Rupert Murdoch property.
Violet
I’ve been enjoying the display of backbone from the Dems. Using words like “anarchists” to describe the tea partiers is very, very welcome from Harry Reid. Moar please.
Violet
TBogg is back! Thank goodness. This mess wouldn’t be the same without him.
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
It can be harnessed, but not safely. Look at today’s Republican Party if you want some evidence of the dangers of harnessing the stupid.
NotMax
@Roger Moore
Murdoch’s newspaper (and I use the term loosely) is the Post.
aimai
I think that the Republicans may have done us an unintended favor by crashing the government on the exact same day that Americans are trying to sign up for the ACA. While the republicans will of course argue that the computers crashing/long waits are the result of generalized governmental incompetence I think most people will assume that it is somehow linked to the Republican party’s refusal to fund the government. This is precisely what you’d think if you weren’t really paying attention and did not understand the various funding formulas behind the actual roll out. Glitches and problems registering are to be expected when millions of people try to sign up for anything online simultaneously. IF it weren’t for the House Republicans millions of people wouldn’t even have known about the October first start date, and millions more would assume that it was just general governmental/DMV style incompentence. But right now? If you are trying to sign up and you are getting an error message you are probably just pissed off at Boehner et al because you think its all their fault the site is down.
MattF
Sad to say, my hometown paper is the WaPo, so this morning I was treated to Richard Cohen discovering that Cruz is a demagogue. So.
Patricia Kayden
@ruemara: Hell since I’m home because of the shutdown, I’d do it!
Roger Moore
@MattF:
Better late than never.
? Martin
I really hope Obama makes a statement every day. I figure Boehner has a week to pass a clean CR before everyone shifts their demands to the debt limit. His job is only going to get harder from here.
Suffern ACE
@Roger Moore: Not really. Murdock has the NY Post, not the Daily News. The Daily News is the Long Island Paper of Record.
Cassidy
Have the resident emoprogs and firebaggers shown up to tell us how super awesome this is or is that scheduled for later. I’m curious how this will become the dawning of a new age of liberalism.
MattF
@Suffern ACE: I once knew a News reporter– he referred to it as the ‘Tabloid of Record’.
Suffern ACE
@? Martin: Yep. This morning the radio was above with the idea of tying the debt ceiling to Obamacare and adding in government worker pensions. By the time they’re through, I’m guessing most of the government workers on furlough won’t want to come back.
Zifnab
@? Martin: Hasn’t Boehner already said he’s throwing in the towel after 2014? Can’t really blame him. I’d have bailed out of that clown car ages ago given half an opportunity. You can make way more money in the private sector.
handsmile
@Roger Moore:
Mort Zuckerman is the owner/publisher of the NY Daily News. The NY Post is Murdoch’s rag; it’s front cover today is below (courtesy Newsmuseum):
http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr.asp?fpVname=NY_NYP&ref_pge=gal&b_pge=8
Priorities.
ETA: apologies. I see both NotMax and SuffernACE were faster to the, um, post.
nemesis
@NotMax: Yes, actually saw a comment elsewhere claiming that using the .gov website secretly registers you as Muslim.
Uhmm, do I get a card signifying my new Muslimism? Any gifts for signing up?
Violet
The market is up today. I guess shutting down the government is good for business?
Violet
@Cassidy: I haven’t visited it myself, but there’s usually plenty of that kind of thing at Daily Kos. If you need a dose of it, you could stop by.
Baud
Uh oh.
MikeJ
@MattF:
It’s funny how the phrase “paper of record” has changed. When the Times was the PoR, what they meant was that they published the name of every ship that came into port and what its cargo was. From there it slowly mutated to, “they print all the important stuff.”
I can’t imagine what a tabloid of record would mean under the original definition. A daily list of all celebrity sex tapes, and who they had on board?
NotMax
@Suffern ACE
For Brooklyn and Queens, probably yes. For the rest of Long Island (with slopover into Queens), Newsday.
Mike E
@nemesis: I think you’re also automatically ghey married, as well. Too.
Betty Cracker
@LAC: No, he’s not going to repeal the ACA, but reasonable people can disagree on the correct path between “don’t give those lunatics a fucking inch” and “someone has to be the fucking grown-ups and run the country.”
Violet
Democrats have launched this website: http://thegopshutdown.com/
Roger Moore
Vaguely OT, but any guesses why gold is way down (off 2.7% intra-day) and the Dow is up? I’d expect people to read the disfunction in Washington as a sign of increased risk of debt default, with consequent flight from US stocks into other assets.
rda909
If only Obummer woulda listened to white online progressives and “KILLED THE BILL,” none of this would be happening! See, he got played again by Republicans as he sold “us” out to the Chicago Machine Big Oil Daley Family Banksters. Gawd, Odronez is so stoopit!
aimai
@nemesis: You get a free beard when you mail in a package of bacon.
SarahT
@Suffern ACE: Nope, that would be Newsday. Daily News is a NYC paper.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Roger Moore:
Doomsday preppers cashing out.
Smart money cashing in on the preppers cashing out.
Cervantes
@MattF: Cohen’s article — in which he says “Mine is not an original observation” — is a perfect synecdoche.
Roger Moore
@aimai:
That would also be true if they were secretly converting you to Orthodox Judaism. I smell conspiracy!
MikeJ
@aimai:
Are the Red Sox sekrit muslins?
Higgs Boson's Mate
@NotMax:
Or money. Just ask Cruz.
Jeremy
Another reason why the GOP wants to stop the ACA because they know once it’s up and running the program will continue to expand in benefits and features. A public option, expansion of subsidies, etc.
Robert Costa of the National Review said that the Republicans are afraid that this program will be like Social Security.
LittlePig
@Violet: Oh my stars and garters! I found out from Pierce, who has sweet basset pictures up in honor thereof.
Morbo
Pretty good Slate article about what the reporting on the shutdown would be like if it took place in a foreign country: If It Happened There … the Government Shutdown.
Keith P.
Kahlua? Grenadine?
Jay C
@NotMax:
Yeah, but the Daily News has long prided itself on maintaining an editorial persona modeled on Archie Bunker – if Archie Bunker were a real person, that is: basically the “voice” for a white working-class demographic that doesn’t exist much anymore. Boehner and the House GOP are such easy targets, though: I guess they just couldn’t let the opportunity go…
Violet
This is awesome. WWII Honor flight vets were coming to see the WWII memorial, but it was closed due to the government shutdown. So:
fuckwit
Um quick question here: what is the end game?
I mean, not what is the teabagger’s end game, we know they are are all in for the total destruction of the United States federal government.
I mean, what is OUR end game? What is the Democrat’s end game? What is Obama’s end game?
We can’t fire the teabaggers until November 2014, and they won’t be gone until January 2015. What do we do until then? Does the government stay shut down for over another year? How long do the Rethugs keep the seige going, and how do we survive it? And what happens with the debt ceiling?
I mean, how do we end this fucking nightmare?
J.D. Rhoades
Someone on FB described the ‘both sides are to blame” lunacy this way:
“It’s like a guy who says he wants to fuck your wife. She says no. He keeps demanding it. She takes him to court and gets a restraining order. He still demands he be allowed to fuck her. She still says no. He says, “okay, I only want to squeeze her tits.” When she still says no, he claims she’s the one at fault because she refuses to compromise.”
MikeJ
@Jeremy:
Make that Roosevelt Security. So popular it’s the political third rail. If they want to call the ACA Obamacare, we should help them. We should expand on that idea.
stinger
I have one Democratic Senator and one Republican Senator. Harkin’s home page displays a banner with information for constituents about the shutdown. Death Panel Grassley’s site? Not a word. It’s as if the shutdown hasn’t happened.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
I’m still rather shocked the GOP is actually going through with this. The last thing their tantrums need is to stop the trains from running on-time. Its not 1995 and despite the media’s best effort, an economic crunch is not going to be blamed on Both Sides Are BAd. There’s enough (relatively speaking) grown-ups in the party to understand this. If even the Chamber of Commerce is saying ‘whoa there’, then who’s pulling the chains on this stunt?
J.D. Rhoades
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
I stopped being shocked at anything those assholes do about the time we invaded Iraq. Up until the tanks started rolling, I kept saying “they can’t be serious, this isn’t going to happen.”
Belafon
@rda909: I haven’t seen anyone like that, even on DailyKos. Even those who spent a year after passing claiming it was the worst give away to insurance companies ever have swung around to realizing how many people it will help and that it’s a step in the right direction.
Chris
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-:
The Chamber of Commerce types have spent the last fifty years empowering the most fanatic ideologues on the right and blowing them full of hot air. Eventually when you do that, these people stop listening and go off on their own. Which appears to be what happened here.
? Martin
@Betty Cracker:
Obama can’t negotiate in this situation. This isn’t an aberration – this is the GOPs new pattern of behavior. We cannot have a nation that legislates only at crisis points because it invites Congress to create a constant stream of crises in order to function. It needs to end here, at whatever cost. Now, I don’t think Obama will let the country default, but I think he will defy Congress and instruct Lew to keep issuing debt using a 14th amendment justification or some such. He’ll fall on his sword here, and it may result in his impeachment, but it’ll end and the damage limited to him alone.
Betty Cracker
@fuckwit: The money people will prevail. They always do. The only question is how much damage will be sustained before that happens.
? Martin
@Belafon: There’s at least 4 commenters here that match the description above.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
considering he works for NRO, he seems like a fairly honest broker. I wonder how many cupcake-frosting-flecked tantrums he’s had to endure from the Pantload and the Blessed Virgin Martyr Of Ratzinger. “STOP SAYING STUFF!”
gogol's wife
@J.D. Rhoades:
Me too. I thought they had to be kidding. We weren’t really going to take over a large, complicated Arab country, were we?
Jewish Steel
Already mentioned above. Whew! TBogg.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Chris:
The inevitable conclusion of creating a Frankenstein’s Monster is that the monster starts to act on its own, and not always is it a tragic monster. Sometimes, it’s just a monster.
Betty Cracker
@? Martin: From your keyboard to the FSM’s orecchiette. This is bigger than any president or moment in time.
SarahT
@MikeJ: And that’s why the new “paper of record” is The Onion
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Betty Cracker: There’s already money people saying “Uh, guys?” But nobody’s listening.
I’m wondering if we’re seeing the apex of peak Citizens United.
Elizabelle
Headline a few minutes ago on the Washington Post website:
Hostage Crisis
Except: it was about Justin Timberlake’s new album. Reviewer did not like it much.
Wish I’d taken a screengrab.
Anya
@Betty Cracker: A lot of the money people are lunatics. Why else would they support the crazies?
fuckwit
@Morbo: I’m crying, that’s a work of beauty. OMG they wrote a Freidman article about the USA, even included the fucking cab driver!! Absolute artistry. Perfect. I’m not sure that even the Onion could have done it better.
Jeremy
@MikeJ: I agree. I think the republicans in the long run will regret calling it Obamacare. They have admitted that the fear is that the program will be like Social Security and Medicare where it becomes popular and expands over the coming years.
History has shown that programs like this are hard to end and they usually evolve and improve.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Holy God. The lovely Alex Wagner has on her usually pretty good panel: Politico’s chief reporter, Tweety who won’ be able to see anything that doesn’t fit the thesis of his book for the next three months and…. Mark Halperin. I’m gonna go work in the yard.
Yup, Tweety just lamented that poor folks “in the middle” don’t know who to believe
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
There’s no daylight between those options. When you’re the grownup in the room, there are times when you absolutely can’t reward your toddler for throwing a tantrum. This is one of those times.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@J.D. Rhoades:
Seconded. I stopped using the phrase “They wouldn’t dare…” at that same time. Anyone who believes that the teahadis will cave on the debt limit is whistling past the graveyard. They have a “Both sides do it” media and voter ignorance on their side and they know it.
We live in interesting times. We’re stocking up on canned goods.
dmsilev
Oh my oh my oh my:
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=0B949373-4D76-4622-8CE7-223370CC6B5E
Betty Cracker
@Anya: Agreed. The Kochs, et al, created the tea party Frankenstein. So will they be Dr. Frankenstein and kill their creation, or will it be up to the pitchfork and torch-bearing rabble to do it for them? Your guess is as good as mine, but this is clearly an unsustainable way to run a country.
schrodinger's cat
My centrist independent friend sent a both sides do it email this morning. It has really pissed me off.
fuckwit
@Betty Cracker: So let me get this straight. Progressives, Democrats, Obama, government workers and their families and communities, and poor people all over the country, are waiting for WALL STREET MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE to come save the day? Put another way (sorry, couldn’t resist): we’re counting on Wall Street to bail us out? That just seems… wrong on so many levels.
Wait… no. Maybe it’s perfect!
Maybe the US Government is too big to fail!!!
Muuaaahahahaah!!
Eric U.
not sure the gummint is going to issue me a check for the money they owe me if this continues. I might have to go sit on Glenn Thompson’s lawn and make rude noises
Chris
@gogol’s wife:
They’re all Cold Warriors. The only “real” countries are America and Russia, and maybe China, Japan, and a few West and East European countries. Everything else is just one big ocean of primitive tribes, to be enticed into one camp or the other by offering them a handful of beads, or coerced with a few well placed CIA operations. How hard can it be?
For another, I think they were just operating on a really simplified idea of how World War Two worked – “hey, all we gotta do is walk in, overthrow the dictator, proclaim democracy and you’re home free! How hard can it be?” And didn’t pay any attention to just how much work had to be put into rebuilding Europe, particularly the non-military aspects of it.
Violet
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Are those canned goods that won’t be inspected by USDA because it’s shut down? Just like the rest of the food supply.
NotMax
@Jay C
Am so old can remember when (generalizing here) the Daily News was the blue collar paper, NYT the starched white collar paper, and the Post the “red” collar paper.
The Journal-American and Herald Tribune were more nebulous, but they did have the better Sunday funnies sections (after the Daily Mirror closed up shop; NYT excluded, as they’ve never done comic strips).
RP
@Betty Cracker: I don’t see any distinction between these positions.
Oops. Coke to Roger Moore.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: It’s worth remembering that the Koch Bros are heirs. They didn’t build that. A lot of business people who really have built that have no idea how the economy works– what do highways and drinking water and the Iraq War have to do with MY TAXES! ?– but I think that’s particularly acute in their case.
@schrodinger’s cat: Lemme guess– s/he is at least moderately affluent, and considers self well informed and knowledgeable because Tom Friedman and NPR?
Cassidy
OT- Country Hip Hop is a real thing. I always figured as much, but this is the first time I’ve explored it on youtube. It’s a little different, but just catchy enough to where you can’t turn away.
Elizabelle
WaPost: fodder for James Fallows: headline:
Both parties agree: it’s the other side’s fault
Lawmakers fight over who’s to blame.
That’s the only info you’ll get on the front page of website. Within: a different story.
Story’s all about political messaging, although it notes more Americans blame the GOP, and Republican strategists are the only ones on record huffing about the danger to “both sides”.
And some pure projection from John Cornyn: he says President Obama is “absolutely allergic to doing his job.”
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Violet:
They’re already in the system. The backup plan is to wok dogs.
schrodinger's cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Add CNN to that list.
patroclus
@Morbo: That’s hilarious! The Republicans are insane and the media should be reporting it as fact. I’ve basically considered Slate to be a contrarian mag full of neoliberal bs, but they hit the mark with that article.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@fuckwit: If you have any other solutions, we would love to hear them.
geg6
@? Martin:
Completely agree. The idea that Obama should negotiate with these assholes is insane. There is nothing to negotiate. Give them the idea there is (which is how this all happened…I mean, I’m an Obot but he was wrong to do that in 2011), and it will never end and we will lurch from crisis to crisis in a never ending spiral of eternal fail.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
There’s more than a soupcon of “Demographic trends inevitably point to the Republican party as currently constituted as doomed, so we’re gonna take the whole shebang down with us” in the madness.
handsmile
The invaluable James Fallows offers a “thought experiment” on what the “tone” would be if Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats had refused to pass a budget over Bush tax cuts or the Iraq War:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/09/the-idiocy-of-the-shutdown-in-3-acts-map-thought-experiment-speech/280141/
“Both sides do it” would not be the Village battle cry.
Bonus: Fallows includes an apposite quotation from Lincoln’s 1860 Cooper Union address (which should now be widely circulated).
Felonius Monk
New York State ACA Insurance Exchange is reporting that their website received over 2 million hits in the first several hours it was open this morning. They had not anticipated that level of activity, but had plenty of people available to man the phones with less than a two minute wait for service.
I know NY was one state that was supposedly well prepared for the opening of the exchange, but if this level of activity is any indication of what might be happening in other states then the ACA may be off to a pretty good start in spite of the rethuglican dickishness.
? Martin
Covered California is straining (not unexpectedly, even Apple’s massive online presence gets knocked out on launch day). A friend of mine is a programmer working on it – not on the website but on the plumbing hooking the exchanges up to the providers. It’s not going fantastically, but then it’s HP doing the work, so no shit. He thinks it’ll be a little rocky for at least the next 6 months.
Another friend is running one of the co-ops. He’s giddy, even though they’re right at their limit. The co-ops really needed a year more to be set up properly. It takes a surprisingly long time to design a new insurance product and test it – particularly for a startup. He says it’ll be a little touch-and-go for them for at least a year. In a way he hopes he isn’t too successful in the first year – manpower can overcome the hiccups provided they aren’t overwhelmed. They’re extremely determined to succeed, though.
He represents another reason why the GOP is fighting so hard. ACA has the potential to hugely increase competition in the marketplace at all levels. And competition can work here (contrary to what many people seem to think) but there’s been almost no competition in recent years because state level monopolies develop. The exchanges level the playing field allowing guys like him to compete against his previous employer (which he is very eager to do). This really upends the status-quo and the guys that are funneling money to Congress.
Davis X. Machina
@J.D. Rhoades:
The GOP only control one tit. So the analogy isn’t perfect.
Mike E
@Morbo: @fuckwit: Yep, love the mustache that was hung on the end with glee. And the call for faith in the “opposition” leader, because, compromise!
Violet
Question: Is the Post Office still running as normal during the shutdown?
Roger Moore
@Chris:
Or how thoroughly crushed the Axis powers had to be before they capitulated. One of the lessons I’ve gotten out of history is that quick, stunning military victories are rarely effective in the long term. Serious occupation and wholesale replacement of the government usually happens only after a long, grinding war that completely destroys the loser’s ability to resist. Our victories over Germany and Japan were preceded by our turning their cities into rubble and killing a substantial fraction of the military age men. Only that level of defeat could crush the spirit of Germany, and Japan still has problems with a far right wing that doesn’t really accept that they deserved to lose.
Felonius Monk
@Eric U.:
Rude noises will probably only be effective if accompanied by rude odors.
sparrow
Is any one else finding it hard to work today? I am obsessively checking news sites to the point where I’m wondering if I have internet addiction…
Felonius Monk
@Violet: Short answer: YES.
Eric U.
I think the crazification of the republican party has been fairly well documented. It finally dawned on me early in GWBush’s presidency that he believed all the bullshit that his dad spouted but would never act on. It was a fairly disheartening moment for me. Prior to that, I felt unhappy but fairly safe having republicans in office. Now, it’s really disturbing when they win any office.
@Felonius Monk: rude smells can be arranged. He lives in the middle of Amish country, wonder if I can arrange to borrow some manure?
NotMax
@Violet
Answer: Yes.
Totally unaffected.
Belafon
@Violet: Yes. It does it’s own funding.
Violet
@? Martin: It will also affect corporations. The “healthcare handcuffs” that keep people tied to their jobs because they need health insurance are no longer going to be in place. People can leave their jobs, start their own businesses, work part time, pursue other interests–and still have health insurance. That’s a big, big deal.
I think it’s going to have a positive effect on the economy and a negative effect on existing corporations. Can’t wait.
LittlePig
@MikeJ: As the President said yesterday, “In ten years, when this is working and people can’t imagine not having it, you can bet that then it won’t be called Obamacare”.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Cassidy: Haha! Firebaggers, good one! Nice preemptive strike against the demons in your head.
Violet
@Felonius Monk: @NotMax: @Belafon: Thanks. I just realized I mailed something on Saturday–had to search out a post office open then–and it has to get there this week. All of a sudden I wondered if it would get slowed down for some reason due to the shutdown.
Mike E
@J.D. Rhoades: Yeah, mebbe we were the only two (hyperbole–ed.) who looked into the claims that precipitated that fiasco, because I didn’t get it either and I’m what you’d call a patriot. It was like going thru the looking glass.
Roger Moore
@Eric U.:
It’s the generation after Reagan that are the real problem. A lot of Republicans in Reagan’s generation knew they were spouting bullshit and were willing to hold off on trying to implement it because they understood it wouldn’t work. The people in power now are ones who grew up listening to Reagan and became Republicans because they accepted his bullshit as gospel. They’re true believers who are trying to implement the bullshit and are genuinely startled when it doesn’t go according to plan- or even worse, refuse to accept that it isn’t going according to plan and double down.
Elizabelle
From the Newseum:
Here’s a roundup of today’s front pages.
And you’ll see the Wall Street Journal is going with Washington’s Grim Face-Off
The faces in question are Reid’s, Obama’s, and Boehner’s.
LittlePig
@Chris: Exactly. The number of people who actually believe their own bullshit has reached a critical mass. I mean, no way is Louie Gohmert actually a Mensa-level schemer brilliantly acting a moron, Louie Gohmert is a moron. Ted Cruz ought to be a damn straitjacket because HE believes his sociopathic malarkey. The bumpkins have taken over the bus, and more reality-based business people are getting kicked to the curb by their own abomination.
ETA: What @Roger Moore said.
schrodinger's cat
Grumpy old Party shuts down the government, with links to MSM outlets/pundits who got it right.
sparrow
@Violet: I also wonder about people near retirement. My mother is working a small part-time job just to pay her insurance bills for a crappy policy. My dad is months from retirement but she will have to keep working for a few years because she’s younger. If she retired from that job due to Obamacare, that would free up a spot for someone younger and unemployed.
srv
@Cassidy: Why just last week, you libs were all talking tough and how we should just let the Republicans burn the Republic.
Welcome to party though.
Baud
Cassidy
@srv: A week ago I commented maybe three times. Not sure what you’re referring to.
cmorenc
@NotMax:
The intractable problem with doing so is that stupidity is a form of entropy, i.e. the inherent portion of energy in any system which is inefficiently dissipated. It’s literally impossible to harnass entropy to any useful effect.
Mike E
@Belafon: Or that PPACA is the necessary bridge that leads us to single payer. Roiling media environment set aside, change of this magnitude won’t happen overnight and some of us olds know this.
Suffern ACE
@Violet: Or it will enable corporations to more easily lay off their employees and hire them back as contractors. It works both ways. Corporations might not actually want employees, IMHO.
LittlePig
They bought their own bullshit on Iraq, with Bill Kristol honestly believing that inside every Iraqi was an American businessman yearning to breathe free (and sell us the damn oil). Romney and a ton of hangers-on believed absolutely that he would win the Presidency. They’ve lived in the Fox News echo chamber so long, they are off creating new realities – failed ones.
Violet
@sparrow: I think there are going to be all sorts of unanticipated effects like that. People will have substantially lower costs for insurance. That’s extra money to spend somewhere else. People who are in jobs they hate because of the insurance will feel freer to leave. Entrepreneurship isn’t something that will potentially kill you due to medical issues. It’s still risky, but you’re not putting your life at risk. A part time job is a real option if you can swing it financially because health insurance isn’t necessarily tied to it.
I just see a lot more freedom for people in a lot of ways.
pamelabrown53
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: “Who’s pulling their chains”? Outside groups like the Heritage Foundation and Club for Growth, to name just 2; they’re all for destroying the Federal Government with the exception of the military. They want to replace the United States with a loose Confederation of States.
fuckwit
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: I don’t have ANYsolutions. That’s what is puzzling, unsettling, and scary about all this. I really don’t know what is the end game. I usually can see it pretty clearly, or at least a few possibilities. This time it’s a mystery to me.
Though I do have to admit I absolutely love the idea of Wall Street being forced to point out that the Federal Government is Too Big To Fail.
Violet
@Suffern ACE: Corporations have been doing that for years. Don’t see why the health care change would make that easier for them. It would make it less sucky for the employees who got laid off, since they can get health insurance now.
Anoniminous
@fuckwit:
The plutocrats will eventually force a resolution of the shutdown and debt crisis because (quick calculation) the shutdown lowers economic activity by ~9% and not raising the debt coupled with a shutdown lowers economic activity by ~18%. The result is: if people ain’t got no money they (1) can’t buy anything and (2) can’t pay-off debt. Since the pluts depend on people buying stuff and paying debt, e.g., credit cards, they need an end to the nonsense.
fuckwit
@Suffern ACE: They have already long been doing this, in spades. Only now us contractors will have some fucking medical insurance, so I gues win.
Ash Can
@? Martin:
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see things play out in exactly this manner. The folks who flipped their shit when one of those people was elected president have been desperate for an excuse to impeach him. And Boehner has made it more than clear to them that he’s letting them run the show. So if (and, if big money fails to throw a net over them, when) these jagoffs force Obama to end-run their nihilism, they’ll gleefully pounce.
This, however:
I’m not so sure about, specifically the “damage” part. The House GOPers already have had a fair number of pundits turn on them, not to mention a plurality of American voters if the recent polls are at all accurate. Because of this, I wouldn’t be terribly sanguine about the reception trumped-up impeachment proceedings carried out by a pack of shit-flinging howler monkeys would likely get from the public and punditry at large. It would be seen as a president who upheld the full faith and credit of the United States vs. the unruly mob who brought about the crisis in the first place. If the conventional-wisdom narrative on the howler monkeys is already starting to shift against them — likely with the help of the big-money guys — I don’t see it snapping back in line behind them in that kind of impeachment scenario. If anything, it would likely make Obama look even better than he does now, by comparison.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
These people are so fucking weird. and so fucking stupid
YOU shut down the fucking goverment, dumbfuck. That’s the government, the same one that pays these vets their VA and SS benefits. Jesus Christ.
Trollhattan
For once, the local dead-tree new (McClatchy) gets it right.
http://www.sacbee.com/2013/10/01/5782654/editorial-house-gop-owns-the-consequences.html#storylink=cpy
And, an email auto-response from a friend who should really, really be at work:
<e.The EPA is closed until further notice.
Elizabelle
GOP = God’s Own Plutocrats
From a great op ed, St. Louis Post Dispatch’s editorial board.
“Oh, to be a Republican extremist for just one day“
Roxy
@Baud:
“Talking Points Memo @TPM 1m
NASA’s asteroid detection staff off the job due to shutdown”
Looks like it’s time to build that spaceship.
Cassidy
So, anyone here know a racist with potential to grow redneck who can shoot a crossbow? TV tells me he/she may be useful in the coming days.
stinger
@Violet: Yes. For some reason, it was decided that mail delivery was no longer a service that a government provides to its people with a little cost-sharing (I missed the moment when that changed) but should instead be a CAPITLIZMFREEDUMBZ self-supporting entity.
Jeremy
@Eric U.: Well George HW Bush was more like his father. Old school Rockefeller eastern establishment republican. Bush called Reagan’s economic plan voodoo economics, and he only embraced it rhetorically when they put him on the ticket. Reagan also forced him to drop his pro choice stance.
Like others said many old school republican moderates like Howard Baker didn’t believe that bull shit but the new generation of republicans believe it.
dmsilev
@Roxy: Can we send the GOP off in the B Ark?
Betty Cracker
Here’s a link to a livestream of the president’s statement, which should be starting any second now.
Kristin
This is my area’s bullshit headline: “Failure to Compromise: Republicans won’t give, Obama won’t negotiate on bill to fund government.” (Sacramento Bee.)
Roger Moore
@Suffern ACE:
I think it actually diminishes the desire to do that. A major reason to have contractors in the first place is to evade rules that require employers to offer all their employees the same healthcare options. If exchanges take over from employer-provided healthcare, employers may decide to take back employees who were previously hired as contractors.
Suffern ACE
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I didn’t fight and die for this country so that a bunch of survivors could look at statues when their government was shut.
nemesis
@? Martin: He’ll fall on his sword here, and it may result in his impeachment, but it’ll end and the damage limited to him alone.
This is the gop end game. Provoke Obama into citing the 14th ammendment, avert the manufactured debt crisis and hand the gop their wet dream scenario where the nation spends the next 2-3 years transfixed by an impeachment crisis. Another wholly manufactured crisis, I might add.
Gotta find another way out.
LAC
@Roger Moore: Exsctly. I am just tired of the snideness from bloggers on top of having to shut down our offices. The president is not the problem here. He has made his position clear and has been consistent. He is only person outside of our immediate supervisors who even acknowledges our presence. His statement shouldn’t be a cause for faux concern about capitulation.
Alexandra
@Betty Cracker:
Haha. Just hopped onto it, to hear reporters wanking and bitching off camera about it running late. Meanwhile, according to The Guardian:
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: At this time, the both sides do it idiots irk me more than the Republican nihilists.
Southern Beale
This brief video clip encapsulates everything that’s wrong with the entire healthcare debate.
People are just so fucking uninformed.
Amir Khalid
@nemesis:
This news intrigues me, for the obvious reason. Do you also get a voucher to help pay for your circumcision?
Hill Dweller
Tweety is on MSNBC blabbing about Reagan and Tip O’Neill…again. Surprisingly, Halperin is pointing out there was no Rush, Drudge Report, Fox, etc. in those days, making compromise much easier.
Kay
I have this vague memory of listening to Karl Rove talk about “70% issues”.
You don’t want to get on the wrong side of those :)
I love how they’ve just cut loose from all moorings here. Where are they going with this? Who knows!
Comrade Jake
I wonder what that elder statesman George Will thinks of all this.
Bill E Pilgrim
Oh man. Somewhere deep in his tobacco-stained soul, down where the orange only barely penetrates dying it all sickly shades of tan and peach, Boehner must have known that something like this image would end up being how he is remembered most. No wonder he’s been bawling so much.
Cermet
@J.D. Rhoades: ““It’s like a guy who says he wants to fuck your wife. She says no. He keeps demanding it. She takes him to court and gets a restraining order. He still demands he be allowed to fuck her. She still says no. He says, “okay, I only want to
squeeze her tits fuck her up the ass.” When she still says no, he claims she’s the one at fault because she refuses to compromise.”Corrected to match what the thugs are really trying.
Belafon
@nemesis: As we found out with Clinton, impeachment in and of itself is not a killer. If the other side does it for unpopular reasons, it will backfire on them.
At the same time, I think Martin’s point is that if Obama, being who he is, decides that taking a chance on being impeached – and possibly convicted – is what it takes to end this taking-the-economy-hostage fiasco, he would do it. And I think that, unlike a few years ago, that the economy could take the damage from a clash within the government far better than it could a few years ago.
Jay C
@Amir Khalid:
Yes, but you have to send your foreskin back to redeem the coupon…
Betty Cracker
@LAC: Oh, so now expressing hope that the president holds the line is evidence of insufficient faith? Good to know.
Chris
@Jeremy:
Yep. 1980 was basically a repeat of the Rockefeller vs Goldwater primary sixteen years earlier… only this time, it ended with the Rockefeller establishment throwing in the towel and pretty much resigning itself to Goldwater control.
scav
@Suffern ACE: Poster Moment. GOPs are all over the “Rules don’t apply to all people equally” shit and go out of their way to bow and scrape to the “right sort” letting them cut in line, while giving an extra grind to the heels stomping on the wrong’uns.
KG
Can we just call a constitutional convention and use that as cover to break it all up? Let NYC become a city-state that the Masters of the Universe can rule (until they realize they have to import everything). Let the South have the confederacy they’ve always wanted, and let them fall into ignorant poverty. I’m actually pretty sure we can break the country up along college conference lines. Pac-12, Big 10, Big 12, SEC, ACC… sure there’s some overlap, but it could work, right?
Eric U.
@Jeremy: the thing that bothered me most was that the Reagan-era electoral strategy of talking crazy while actually trying to govern was not passed on from father to son. If the current group of crazies ever passed their version of Sharia law and got everything they want, they would be in trouble. GHWBush and Reagan were relatively liberal people that were using the dog whistle to get votes, and cynically failed to satisfy any of their followers. Reagan made an art of doing that. This was for electoral purposes only, just like the Southern Strategy.
Betty Cracker
Okay, statement underway, and Obama is calling out “one faction of one party in one house of congress” for an “ideological crusade.” Repeats “ransom” line. Huzzah!
Southern Beale
@Kay:
Rep. Marsha Blackburn, GOPer Congressmonster from the district right next to the one I live in, says that the shutdown is a good thing because “maybe it will teach people to live with less government.”
This is what they’re thinking. They’re thinking most people “won’t notice” a shutdown or be too inconvenienced, those who do are just those nasty poors sucking off the gummint teat and who gives a shit about them, anyway. And they’re pretty sure that most people weren’t planning to visit a national park this weekend, or weren’t closing on a mortgage, or waiting on a FEMA check, or needed a passport, or whatever. So they’re pretty sure we’ll come to like this “less government” stuff.
That’s what they’re thinking. They’ve been trying to do this for YEARS and that’s the reason why. They’re absolutely convinced that we’ll like this smaller government they keep telling us is so wonderful.
max
@Betty Cracker: Okay, statement underway, and Obama is calling out “one faction of one party in one house of congress” for an “ideological crusade.” Repeats “ransom” line. Huzzah!
Ayup!
@Southern Beale: So they’re pretty sure we’ll come to like this “less government” stuff. That’s what they’re thinking. They’ve been trying to do this for YEARS and that’s the reason why. They’re absolutely convinced that we’ll like this smaller government they keep telling us is so wonderful.
That’s it exactly. They like the Koolaid, it must be that everyone else will LOVE the Koolaid.
max
[‘I dig the bird chirping in the background behind Obama.’]
Jay C
also, President Obama laid the onus squarely on Speaker Boehner – and the Republicans – by name – and pointing out the ACA is the main deal.
Cue the fainting-couch wailing about “partisanship”…..
Belafon
@Southern Beale: Or getting a gun license.
Villago Delenda Est
@dmsilev:
It’s interesting that congressional staffers are eligible for subsidies for health insurance. Apparently they’re not paid very much.
Oh, and it’s hilarious that the Orange ‘Tard is stabbing his own minions in the back in public over this.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
In other news, a study pretty much echos the kind of fear I have that breeds apathy: the more enthusiastic you are, the more you try in general activism, the more people will hate you for it and by extension the issue you’re volunteering for. Though I have a feeling if this were applied to right wing activists and agitators, the results would probably be totally flipside. After all it took several years and total batshit insanity before the Tea Party’s numbers went underwater. So….yeah, fuck it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Southern Beale:
If the government is made smaller by taking Marsha Blackburn off the payroll, I agree with her that it’s a good thing.
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
Oh, absolutely. Me too. Especially because to pretend that both sides are equally bad requires a moral compass just about as badly fucked up as the True Believers’.
“I find it troublesome that Republicans start wars on false pretenses, maintain a gulag in Cuba, intend to tear up the safety net and let millions die for lack of food or health care, believe homosexuals are an abomination and women shouldn’t be allowed to control their own body, and suppress people’s right to vote. But I find it equally troublesome that Democrats want to raise taxes on the rich from their lowest point in eighty years to their previous lowest point in eighty years, and that Obama doesn’t invite the Congressional leadership over for pizza enough times. So how can I say that one is better?”
KG
@Southern Beale: they’re betting on this because the “government” is a fairly nebulous idea to most people. And for a day or two, they can get away with it – look, everything was shut down for a week and we didn’t completely collapse, let’s cut more stuff. But if this goes beyond, say, a month – when more and more things have to be shut down, then it’ll be trouble. Which is why it didn’t go 30 days in the 90s and probably won’t go that long this time.
Southern Beale
@max:
And because of the gerrymandered House, few if any of these people will suffer any consequences at the polls. So they will continue to think that everyone will love the Kool-Aid if only that blackety-black Obummer weren’t trying to redistribute the wealth to the lazy poors.
BTW saw a car at Whole Foods today, big ugly orange redneck car. Printed in HUGE silver letters on the side of both fenders was “Don’t Work, Don’t Eat.” DIdn’t think that much stupid was allowed on the public roads.
scav
Interesting coincidence in events, his party may be turning on Berlusconi a bit. Close Berlusconi allies defy him over confidence vote
Italians currently slightly ahead for the baseline sanity in government award.
Betty Cracker
So far, this statement couldn’t be better. Pitch. Perfect.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
You know, channeling Brian Williams and Leslie Blitzer can be hazardous to your health.
Southern Beale
@Belafon:
Yup. Why are the Republicans trying to take everyone’s guns away???!!!!
Trollhattan
@Comrade Jake:
He will recall that during his hitting streak, Joe DiMaggio was tested many times; ergo, Barack Obama=communist.
fuckwit
Where is Nate Silver when you need him?
I was looking at the stats on gerrymandered districts in another thread here, and noticed a huge gaping air shaft in the Death Star: their seats are NOWHERE NEAR AS SAFE AS OURS!
Like, the D seats are 80% D, ridiculous. But the R seats are only 50%-60% R on average.
We can beat those odds. All we have to do is let the R’s overreach and piss off their own constituents (already well underway!) and welcome ex-R’s to the D party (already done that, many of us here including or esteemed bloghost are in that group). And put up good, solid candidates, and campaign really, really hard. But it’s doable, I think, and I’d love for Nate Silver to jump in sometime soon and crunch the numbers to confirm/deny this hunch.
In other words, I think the key to solving the gerrymandering problem is simply to do what Obama does best: be reasonable and competent and even-tempered and inclusive.
And… keep pointing out the clown show that is the Rethug party at every available opportunity.
KG
@Southern Beale: nah, guns are a constitutional right, licensing is unconstitutional, so really they’re just restoring the constitution… that will be the argument, I suggest responding with a fifth of vodka, or liquor of your choice.
scav
@Chris: It’s not a reasoned opinion, it’s a blind refusal to make the effort to evaluate evidence, consider positions and come to an opinion. It’s kneejerk laziness, malign and willing ignorance and passive cooperation in the worse outcomes with parasitic benefit in the good, usually served with a side of smug.
Southern Beale
BTW, is this John Boehner’s Katrina?
elftx
DEADBEAT !!!!!! WOOT !! You Go POTUS
KG
@Southern Beale: I’m going with John Boehner’s Waterloo
ETA: Little Big Horn, also too
eric
@Davis X. Machina: so i am assuming there is a different body part for the debt limit
? Martin
@Southern Beale:
Don’t be so sure. The only way that gerrymandering works is by putting your opposition in a handful of really safe seats so you can take all the rest in close contests. Most of these guys won by single digits and they’re relying on Republican controlled state legislatures and governors to make the votes work for them.
Gerrymandering is why the party in power often loses so many seats so quickly – they lose 5% of their support and wind up losing 15% of their seats because their majority was quite tenuous to begin with. If public opinion really starts turning on the GOP, they may get wiped out in 2014.
Trollhattan
Holy crap, a TBogg sighting. H/T LGM
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/01/beach-blanket-boredom/
Chris
@Eric U.:
But that was kind of inevitable. You can’t just keep talking crazy like that without your voters at some point demanding that you follow up with actions. The reason the crazy talk resonates is because a lot of people believe it. So if, for example, you give people a scapegoat (the nonwhites, the poor, the unions, the government), and then get to Washington and fail to do anything about said scapegoat, at some point the voters that were brought into the coalition by your message are going to start wondering what you’re waiting for, and putting pressure on you to do something. The teabaggers are the culmination of that.
TL/DR; rhetoric has consequences, and it was pretty much inevitable from the start that the Southern Strategy would eventually cause a conversion from “talking crazy” to “acting crazy.”
MikeJ
@fuckwit:
That’s the definition of Gerrymandered.
? Martin
Wow, that’s a big headline at CNN.
Villago Delenda Est
@KG:
John Boner’s Stalingrad.
Chyron HR
@Southern Beale:
Close, it’s actually Obama’s Rosanna.
Jay C
Gotta say that though I agree with the President 110%, this was not a great speech: pretty much a repetition of stuff he has already said – plus a few Obama-trademark personal stories, of course.
And naturally – since I was watching ABC News, I got to see George Stephanopolous (and G*d, do I hate to see that smarmy little weasel on the tube!) feature the GOP’s “response” – a cut to a shot of Eric Cantor and some Repubs sitting (alone) at one side of a conference table “waiting for Democrats to negotiate”.
Our media in action…..
Hill Dweller
The ghouls in the WHPC were yelling, “Why won’t you negotiate?”, as the President was walking away from the podium.
Both sides!
srv
The GOP Might Lose the Shutdown Battle, but It’s Already Won the Spending War
LAC
@Betty Cracker: with the most of the usual balloon juice commentariat here? That ingenue act you pulling there is a little dated. But what a wet noodle he was In his press statement, huh?
Lurker
I’m so angry about this shutdown that I’m besides myself today.
Soonergrunt
@Violet: I can’t find a link for the new domain he mentions.
max
@Southern Beale: And because of the gerrymandered House, few if any of these people will suffer any consequences at the polls.
Thus, even if my step-dad is working and not getting a paycheck, I support Republican efforts to commit suicide.
So they will continue to think that everyone will love the Kool-Aid if only that blackety-black Obummer weren’t trying to redistribute the wealth to the lazy poors.
That’s the South, hon. If all the black people in the entire world were Hoovered up by an alien spaceship (because they want to take them to a better place), there would still be some slope-headed sumbitch bitching about vodka and Cadillacs.
BTW saw a car at Whole Foods today, big ugly orange redneck car. Printed in HUGE silver letters on the side of both fenders was “Don’t Work, Don’t Eat.” DIdn’t think that much stupid was allowed on the public roads.
There’s a new truck driving down my street – old white Ford (I *like* old Fords but white is definitely the worst truck color) and they have gone and painted the Stars & Bars on the hood.
Makes me want to burn a Klan scarecrow on my lawn.
max
[”It’s a lovely day outside, the birds are chirping, the people here are getting their health insurance, all is right with the world… why are you Republicans a bunch of fucking morons again?’]
nemesis
@Belafon: And that is a challenge the gop is more than willing to take on. They are foaming at the mouf for a real juicy manufactured constitutional crisis. Not saying they win, just saying its their game and their ball IMO.
Poopyman
@sparrow:
Why yes,yes I am. I was laid off in March due to Sequestration. Today a lot of my fellow govt workers and contractors feel a teeny bit the way I did/do.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Hill Dweller:
Yep. About what I thought. Wholly depressing, but about what I thought.
Cacti
@Southern Beale:
Rep. Marsha Blackburn, GOPer Congressmonster from the district right next to the one I live in, says that the shutdown is a good thing because “maybe it will teach people to live with less government.”
When asked yesterday if she’d give up any portion of her $174,000 Congressional salary, Blackburn wouldn’t answer.
Austerity for thee, but not for me.
fuckwit
@Cacti: Yeah, I’m sure of us would live a lot better without these Rethugs in government, for sure.
Chris
@Hill Dweller:
The fact that anyone, let alone most of the public, still believes that the media is “liberally biased” when the opposite fact is staring them so blatantly in the face just boggles my mind.
Belafon
@srv: There’s not much you can do about that but hold on. When the crazy man has a gun, you don’t really get to leave the house and buy bread.
Jay C
@scav:
Great! So now the Italians are looking to have a better handle on governing than WE do?
@fuckwit:
You (and Nate Silver) may be right about SOME gerrymandered GOP seats, but I wouldn’t go allocating Majority committeeships just yet. Thanks to the generation-long shift of Party identifications in a lot of the country, those states with a longstanding tradition of single-party-rule machine politics (the South, Texas, much of the West) have probably locked in an irreducible GOP minimum of Congressional seats for at least the next decade: and it’s far from “veto-proof majority” levels. In parts of the country where Democrats are NOT viewed (often literally) as the Party of Satan: yes, overly tricky district-balancing can (and might) backfire on the Republicans. Elsewhere, though…
Cacti
@Hill Dweller:
The ghouls in the WHPC were yelling, “Why won’t you negotiate?”, as the President was walking away from the podium.
To which, the response remains “Negotiate what?”
Negotiation means that each side gives something and each side gets something. Agreeing to keep the federal government operating isn’t a concession, it’s a primary job responsibility.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chris: They have gay friends, recycling bins, and vacation houses on Cape Cod. Of course their liberals.
Belafon
@Soonergrunt: I think it’s the name of his particular part of Raw Story, beach blanket boredom. He was going to register it as a domain name, someday…
Steeplejack
@Soonergrunt:
I couldn’t find a link either, but TBogg said: “And I was fortunate enough to have a relationship [. . .] with the lovely Roxanne of Raw Story and we worked something out [. . .]. So I’m back and this is where I will be for the foreseeable future [. . .].”
nemesis
Now the crazies want to introduce legislation to fund only the parts of gummit they want funded. Does the idiocy ever stop? Does the media ever tire of false equvalency? I picked the wrong day to quit sniffing glue. My son is out of work. His GF is out of work. All because of the gop’s sociopathic needs.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Belafon: @Steeplejack: Can’t resist pointing out… he didn’t quit blogging, he quit Jane Hamsher.
Belafon
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: My thought as well.
scav
Rather cute that some (specific) people equate temporary spending cuts under duress to long-term and absolute budgetary wins, as though flinging oneself forward is the same as moving the entire front line with barbed wire, fortifications, supply lines, etc permanently into enemy territory (especially when the nominal leaders are running about screaming, flinging themselves into ditches, and pointing guns at fellow officers of the line — while many of the troops are beginning to regard them oddly). Custer putting one foot in front of the other at a specific moment in time must have been a vibrant demonstration of just who won the engagement (as did the crumpled blue bodies inevitably demonstrate the outcome of the still larger engagement). Pin all the medals on their parading chests they will, there’s still smoke on the battlefield.
Funny too how spending below what the President and party asked for is in no way to be interpreted as evidence of cooperation or negotiation from the other side. Capitulation = Cooperation must be added along with the Bipartisan = Doing it My Partisan Way to the War is Peace Dictionary.
Kay
@Southern Beale:
Except it just looks like incompetence to most people, people who aren’t politically rabid.
Maybe it looks like “both sides” incompetence, but that’s not a plus for Republicans.
One of the things that was amusing about the Bushies was how absolutely insane they would get when accused of incompetence. They didn’t give a shit if they were lying about wars, but they were OUTRAGED when anyone said they couldn’t run the government. Watch the sputtering rage when Katrina is mentioned even to this day. They couldn’t get bottled water to Biloxi, is the bottom line.
I think that’s a conservative conceit, that they’re all “good managers”. They can lie about it all they want but it will bug the shit out of them if people start thinking they’re just plain old fuck-ups. That’s what the government not running looks like. Clownish.
burnspbesq
@Mike E:
Really? I hope he’s cute.
James E. Powell
@Belafon:
If the other side does it for unpopular reasons, it will backfire on them.
It didn’t backfire on them. They used it very effectively to rally their base for 2000. They also used it to turn the corporate press/media against Al Gore. As Somerby has shown, the War on Gore commenced right after the failed impeachment, with the same major players, the same corporate press/media.
This government shutdown and the debt ceiling war that will follow are the beginning of the midterm campaigns. I fully expect the Republicans to win those elections and own both houses for the last two years of Obama’s second term. They are not going to repeal Obamacare, but they will reduce entitlements. Obama will “save social security” just like Clinton “ended welfare as we know it.” The right-wingers not only get the policies they want, the get Democrats to sponsor and take credit for them.
burnspbesq
@Steeplejack:
TBogg and TRex at the same place. Boggles, the mind does.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
an equally clownish corollary in the notion that Obama’s Syria policy is a sign of weakness because he wasn’t “decisive!”
Rorgg
@Violet: I got a chuckle after hearing meat inspectors are one thing that won’t be affected, because they’re absolutely essential.
Carry on the good fight, men (and women)
MikeJ
@burnspbesq:
♪♬♩ Who needs TBogg when I got T Rex? ♪♬♩
PurpleGirl
I went to vote in the Public Advocate runoff (NYC). When I finished, I over heard one of the poll workers and a guy talking about the repercussions of the shut-down. The woman was complaining that she was laid-off. The guy was commiserating with her. I had to say something, had to.
So I mentioned that they should consider that the one program that the Republicans wanted to end/kill/whatever was the one program that was open for business today. It didn’t matter that the web site might be hard to get (after all you can bring it at other times, over night even). The program was open for business. Everything else is affected, but the one program the Republicans have wanted to kill, that they’ve been prepared to do ANYTHING to kill it, was open for business. I repeated Republican and kill the program as often as I could. They didn’t have any comments for me and their faces looked sick. (I’m sure they were both Republicans or at least anti-Obama.)
It made me feel good.
AxelFoley
@Betty Cracker:
I like how he keeps repeating that line each time he talks about the shutdown. Keep the focus on the party at fault for this whole mess.
Mnemosyne
@Southern Beale:
This right here. They completely believe that government=bad and, frankly, forget about all of the things the government does. I’m guessing Blackburn is going to be getting an earful from her constituents who turn out to actually need stuff from the government.
Trollhattan
@MikeJ:
Why, all the young dudes.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
They do believe it, though. It’s central to their self-image. I’m working with them on the school bond issue here and they keep telling me what a great job they’re doing. It’s making me nervous because I’m a little superstitious. I think they should stop congratulating themselves prematurely, or…something bad will happen.
They ARE doing a perfectly good job. I don’t know if they need reassurance or what. It’s really different than Democrats, the whole approach.
Older
@Southern Beale: AAAAAGGGGHHHH
Not brief enough.
chopper
@aimai:
this is true. despite the fact that obamacare is fully funded and all, if a bunch of gummint employees are furloughed you’d expect the IT for something like the ACA to have hiccups. the GOP just did obama a solid.
as an aside, my branch has some carryover funds so i’m working through this shutdown for at least a few weeks. of course some stuff is running slowly or not at all, and i can only hope that my paycheck next saturday gets processed, but overall i consider myself very lucky.
chopper
@Jay C:
well, given that everyone remembers the Daily News’s infamous cover during the last shutdown and that it actually had a pretty big impact on the perception of the whole thing by the public, i imagine they feel they have to print something kinda big today.
chopper
@? Martin:
which is about the best thing he could do in the situation. of course the rate on those bonds will skyrocket (i mean, their validity will be seriously up in the air). but i guess if the fed decides to hoover them up in an attempt to keep us from going over the event horizon it won’t matter quite so much.
Chris
@Kay:
If you’re a believer in hierarchy, which they are, then being a good manager would be what it’s all about. Doesn’t even matter what you’re managing – just the job description “I am qualified to order a bunch of people around for a greater purpose” is their life’s aspiration. Telling them they’re not qualified to command people… ouch.
Jebediah, RBG
@Davis X. Machina:
Sounds like a pretty good battle cry.
Ben Cisco
@Hill Dweller: I sent him a note about that shit.
Mike E
@burnspbesq: Or she. Let’s be gender neutral, now…