Reading report after report that wingnut congressmen and their stooge followers are all pissed off that parks are closed and that the government shutdown has actually shut down the government. What exactly did they think would happen?
The guiding principle of the GOP for decades has been to make government so small you could drown it in the bathtub. We’re not to the drowning part yet, but right now the Republicans are getting the next best thing, which is giving the American people a royal swirly with a shutdown. You’d think this would make them happy- it’s what they wanted, it’s what they fought for, it’s what bill after bill coming out of the house the past few weeks was designed to do, and yet, for some reason, they are pissed they got their way.
The government is shut down, people are suffering. That’s what you all wanted, right?
Jeff Spender
They’re starting to understand that they like government, after all. They just don’t want to admit it because the Kenyan usurper is in charge.
Omnes Omnibus
They didn’t expect any of the blame to adhere to them.
Violet
Any part of the shutdown that inconveniences them or the folks who vote for them is unacceptable. The rest–merely an inconvenience and people just need to tighten their belts.
That’s what it means. Nothing else.
dmsilev
I think they think “government” is “giving free money to people I don’t like” (e.g. people think we spend 10% of our budget on foreign aid) and they don’t connect it with the actual stuff that the government actually does.
The latter is apparently carried out by elves and pixies.
Ash Can
They aren’t pissed off by it, they’re just pretending to be. They’re grandstanding on something they think is high-visibility to the masses. Moreover, I’m sure they’re seeing this as a two-fer: Bitching about how the government is fucking up its control of national parks neatly segues into “Maybe these national parks shouldn’t be under government control at all.” Profit!! Literally!
Rommie
They are as sure that the country hates Obamacare (and secretly hate that Near guy being in charge) as they were that Mitt Romney was going to win the 2012 election. They *can’t* be wrong this time!
Zam
They’ve been listening only to themselves for way to long, I think a lot of them actually believe that most government spending is given away to poor people or wasted on useless bureaucrats that just shuffle papers between eachother all day while playing on the internet.
Alison
It shows their total hypocrisy and stupidity. They’ve yelled for years about wanting smaller, smaller, smaller government and refused to listen to people who explained why that was bad, why government is important necessary, what would go wrong if certain parts were shuttered. They did not want to accept that any of it was true and probably fooled themselves into believing their own bullshit.
Now they’re seeing that it was, in fact, bullshit, and they’re pissed. But heaven forbid they actually hold themselves responsible, so instead they’re pissed at the Democrats, as though that makes any sense. And these assholes are only feeling a tiny shred of the brunt of the shutdown, nothing at all like less fortunate people are dealing with, and they’re crying like babies. If they ever had to deal with actual struggles, they’d collapse in a heap.
Violet
@Jeff Spender: They’re just as dumb as the people in that Jimmy Kimmel clip where they asked people if they preferred Obamacare or the ACA. Wingnuts think “government” means “giving away my money to poor people.” They don’t seem to have any idea it means things like the military, the National Park Service, the TSA, etc.
Zam
@Ash Can: This might be correct. It’s why they only vocalize support for the WWII memorial, you can never go wrong if it looks like you are standing up for the troops.
kindness
Republicans know they caused the Parks and other places to shut. They are just used to a compliant media repeating their bullshit like it was truth.
This is just another case in point. Repubs think they can bamboozle the low information voter and sadly with our current media they can.
Patrick
@Violet:
Amen. The only difference between them and Democrats is that they want spending on THEIR favorite things that the governments does. Hell, the tea baggers have not seen a single defense spending bill they didn’t like.
LanceThruster
Teahadist government “slimdown” is a like a beheading to lose 10lbs of ugly fat.
dmsilev
Also, remember what happened this summer when they tried to actually implement the Ryan Budget. The Ryan Budget per se was an incredibly vague document that boiled down to “spending must be cut” and once the appropriators tried to specify the cuts they discovered that the vast vast majority of the money was being spent on things that were useful and valuable and there wasn’t actually huge amounts of fat to cut. So they punted.
Welcome, however briefly, to the real world.
? Martin
@Zam: They’re not even screaming about the Lincoln Memorial being shut. Tells you a lot, that.
David Koch
Oh please, John.
For years, if not decades, the low IQ base have been screaming get Government out of Medicare.
srv
You people just never realize you’re dealing with children.
Keep applying Dr. Spock’s child-centered approach and keep coming up with failure. Insanity, all that.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Ash Can:
This. All this.
And fuck all, what the fuck is wrong with the Atlantic, using the moment as a chance to give a bit sloppy paean to the Tea Party and lecturing the Dems about how they need to be so awesomely grassroots as they were. No surprise the comments are filled with similarly swooning dipshits along with the same “OBAMACARE RAMMED THROUGH, NO COMPROMISE!” bullshit.
FUCKING HINT YOU ASSHATS, THE FACT THAT NO GOPer VOTED FOR IT IS NOT PROOF THAT IT WAS A PARTISAN HACKJOB BY THE DEMS, YOU FUCKING IDIOTS.
StringOnAStick
They are sure they have to make this stand, because as we’ve all basically agreed, once ACA becomes standard there is no going back. They just figured they’d roll the President quickly (they’ve said that), get their pony, and it would all be over before anyone noticed. It hasn’t turned out that way, so they are gibbering and skittering, and it is only going to get worse for them.
President Obama’s best bumper stick quote was “please proceed”, and we’re going to get more than one use out of that statement. The constitutional lawyer in Obama is not going to stand for these idiots destroying our foundational document, no matter how severe their butthurt. Should we start sending cases of diaper cream and pacifiers to our rethug congressmen?
Ash Can
@Zam: I mean, this whole WWII Memorial tantrum was about as GOP-cliched as they could get. I’m sure that they’re smarting over the fact that the entire nation didn’t immediately rally around them in their “defense” of the veterans. I guess they underestimated the ability of some of the facts undermining the portrayal of their stunt as bold and principled to get out.
PaulW
Not entirely. They also wanted to be hailed as Warrior Gods of the Pax Reaganicus, and not enough people are paying them homage.
Zifnab
In before “That they would be greated as liberators”!
becca
@Jeff Spender: this reminds me of the old Monty Python punch line “Could it be black cock? “.
That’s the root of the problem with these guys, isn’t it?
cathyx
They want gross poor people to suffer, not them. Shutting parks affects them, cutting food stamps and welfare doesn’t.
CaptMaggie
Isn’t that the essence of Republicanism? “I know somebody who uses that so that wasn’t what I was talking about.” They all think it’s the other guy’s ox that’s going to be gored.
balconesfault
It’s even dumber. They think that if they were to just go out and fund the things people notice immediately and start bitching about, this would be a better system than starting from the top with a budget that covers everything and allows for rational planning.
Because obviously, only the things people immediately notice are important. When the levees rupture, then it’s time to allocate some money to fix them.
Mike Dixon, BFA
Got this email from a relative this morning:
Predictably, the nuttosphere is going f1ucking apes1shit.
MattF
What, consistency? Ha ha. It’s about resentment and getting people angry. “I’m angry about that too. I’m so angry I can’t see straight. So vote for me.” And it works.
geg6
LOL, John Cole. The only thing they don’t like about this is getting the blame. Well, maybe not all of them. Some of them truly are so stupid as to not know that national parks are a part of the government. After all, they are, some of them, the ones out there screaming about keeping the government out of Medicare.
Svensker
@Mike Dixon, BFA:
Holy moley.
Zifnab
@balconesfault:
FTFY!
PaulW
@srv:
Not just specifically children, but drunken teenagers running wild with their parents’ credit cards, another generation of Daisys and Toms with their recklessness and avoidance of accountability, letting other people pay their bills and suffer their sins.
Original Lee
I agree with you. Just trying to figure out how to respond to the chart on Thomas.gov that shows 10 out of 12 appropriations bills passing the House but no action in the Senate. IIRC, the Senate passed their own versions of the bills but now they go to conference to reconcile the different versions, except the House is refusing to name their conferees. But that is not reflected in Thomas, as far as I can tell, and I don’t want to read the entire text of the bill to make sure that it’s legit as opposed to an empty title.
cathyx
@? Martin: I thought the Lincoln Memorial was an open building that had no doors, so it can’t be closed unless its blocked off.
PaulW
@Mike Dixon, BFA:
They would get angry over how Obama ties his shoelaces, if only because that anger keeps them warm.
It’s gotten to where it’s all the wingnuts feel: hatred for the Other. No matter how many other people have to get hurt for that hate to endure.
Tokyokie
@Alison: It reminds of high school, when a druggie caught red-handed rolled on a dozen or so of his customers, all of whom were promptly locked up. (In case you’re wondering about the legality of this, it happened in another country.) The other druggies couldn’t blame one of their own, so they decided to blame one of my non-druggie best friends. But at least those people were teenagers who did a lot of dope. The GOP’s base wouldn’t appear to have those extenuating circumstances.
PaulW
@cathyx:
All Memorials get blocked off to avoid vandalism. It has happened, just recently I believe someone tried to splash paint over Lincoln’s statue.
WereBear
@Mike Dixon, BFA: I wonder what person sits around and makes up these emails… and how much they make.
Does it come with healthcare?
Original Lee
@Ash Can: I think there are enough olds who remember the last two shutdowns and are wondering why shutting national parks and monuments is suddenly a big deal.
? Martin
@Svensker: That actually is the helpline number.
Southern Beale
Republicans are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to pretend their two contradictory positions on this thing make sense: on the one hand, it’s not a “shutdown,” it’s a “slimdown,” and as Congressmonster Marsha Blackburn said, it’s what the American people need because we’ll all learn how easy it is to get along with less government.
And at the same time their wining like stuck pigs about their favorite things being shut down: parks, memorials, etc.
It makes no sense.
Scotty
Underpants gnomes:
1. Collect underpants
2. ?
3. Profit
Republicans
1. Eliminate government functions
2. ?
3. ?
Even the underpants gnomes though ahead with greater purpose and foresight.
cathyx
@PaulW: So in order for them to be closed, it requires a person to stand guard to keep people out. That makes no sense to close it then, since when it’s open, there is no guard.
Gex
Every last bit of their political philosophy has been to shrink government in ways that hurt others, not themselves. I can’t tell you how many assholes I saw in my Facebook feed argue that a shutdown would be NBD, they don’t benefit from the government in any way. That’s exactly what all the wingnuts and their supporters believe. They are shocked and outraged that they are being inconvenienced by the shutdown but I guarantee you few, if any, are going to extrapolate from this and realize that they do indeed benefit from a funded and functioning government. Namely because their philosophy has all the coherence of someone with a traumatic head injury.
Bokonon
@dmsilev: But now the GOP are circling back to the Ryan Plan again, and are demanding that President Obama agree to implement it for them … as a cost of re-opening the government.
I really can’t find words.
Citizen_X
The shutdown is awesome, and the GOP thinks we should run the country that way. It’s also the worst thing ever, and totally Obama’s fault.
For clarification, see Orwell: Doublethink.
Hungry Joe
Do we have any Salad speakers left in government, or did they all get furloughed when Palin didn’t get the VEEP job? Because if this thing is ever going to get settled, we’re going to need translators. From Maddow:
GOP Congressman Mark Meadows on NPR: “This fight now has become about veterans and about national guard folks that perhaps — reservists that are not getting paid.”
NPR’s Tamara Keith: If it’s not about Obamacare anymore, why not vote on a clean CR?
Meadows: “Because it, twofold.One is, is, that when you when you start to look, they say ‘clean CR?’ That it, it translates into into to truly a blank check, and, and so Obamacare is an issue for me and my constituents, but what happens is today is, we gotta figure a way to open it back up and, and with that, in opening it back up, when we start to look at these issues, it, it is critical that we make it, the decisions we, we make to be as least harmful as they possibly can be.”
Villago Delenda Est
John, this is really very simple.
They’re trying to shift the blame to “that one” and the race traitors who enable him.
This is really very simple. Even some born in a holler West Virginian like you should be able to grok this.
MattF
@Citizen_X: I disagree. ‘Doublethink’ is holding two contradictory ideas in your head at the same time. That’s two more than the current winger crowd manages.
El Cid
Remember, here in Georgia all sorts of Republicans acted (and I think frequently were genuinely surprised and) shocked that when they passed a law cracking down on the employment of non-citizen farm labor, suddenly there was a lack of farm labor and farmers (who had tried to quietly warn of the law’s threat) were left with crops going unpicked.
They openly vowed to crack down on illegal immigrant farm labor, and when it happened (a court voided the law as stepping on federal turf) they were shocked that farmers would lack farm labor.
In California, they all acted shocked that when they had new Guv Arnie repeal the hated vehicle fee, a hole opened up in the budget the exact same size as the anticipated vehicle fee collections.
They wanted to remove a major and known revenue source, they imposed no replacement, yet act surprised that when they did so, the revenues they removed left a larger budget deficit.
They want to demand action of a certain type and then they absolutely refuse to accept that the actions of the certain type had the entirely connected consequences that they themselves had brought about.
They demand X, then act shocked when X causes Y, no matter how much Y was undeniably going to result from X.
It’s like they demand to eat as much of they want as frequently of they want of anything they want, and then when they gain weight they scream about how betrayed & surprised they are of this new weight gain.
Hill Dweller
The Village, after a couple of days rightly hammering House Republicans, are slowly stating to shift blame to the President. I suspect the Sunday shows will be a parade of buffoons advising Obama to negotiate with Boehner.
khead
WOLVERINES!
ranchandsyrup
@Mike Dixon, BFA: The Governator knew how to do this sort of message sending. Didn’t need any 1’s either. He was a hero for standing up to those dastardly Assembly Dems.
MattF
@Hungry Joe: Whoa. That makes things clearer, although probably not as intended.
Villago Delenda Est
@LanceThruster:
Well, most of their heads would look much better on pikes than on their shoulders, so there is that.
joel hanes
what the fuck is wrong with the Atlantic
You’re expecting more from a publication that employed Megan McArdle as its Economics Editor?
That allows Gregg Easterbrook to report on science?
I subscribed faithfully from 1975 to about 2004, when I could no longer stand to read about half the issues.
Villago Delenda Est
@El Cid:
They are seriously deficient in the cause and effect department, for sure.
Violet
@Hungry Joe: Dang. That’s almost Palinesque. Good job on the saying nothing using as many words as possible.
PaulW
@cathyx:
When the parks and memorials are open there are still guards, keeping an eye on things. You just might not notice them, that’s all.
There are guards now, if only because they’re collecting IOUs. Dunno what will happen when the IOUs run out and it’s Debt Ceiling Weekend.
Villago Delenda Est
@Gex:
DING DING DING DING DING!
PaulW
As an honorary member of TNC’s Horde, please don’t piss too much on The Atlantic. Please and thank you.
Teddy's Person
@Mike Dixon, BFA:
The rightwing responds two ways:
1. Oh no, the phone number (minus the 1) spells a swear. I’m getting the vapors.
2. The number says f*ck, heh, heh, heh (a la Bevis and Butthead).
MikeInSewickley
I called into one of the blowhard talks shows on KDKA two days ago and reminded them this is nothing new and I quoted Messiah Reagan “Government is not the solution to our problem government IS the problem”.
So why should anyone be surprised by the shutdown – we’ve been electing people to govern who hate government ever since.
I actually got the guy to agree Little difference it will make in the knuckle dragging parts of the country.
——-
“Hey! I need more butter for this popcorn! It’s just getting good!”
Villago Delenda Est
@PaulW:
I’d be more worried about someone painting “REpeAL oBAmaCaRe” all over the memorial.
PaulW
@khead:
No Spoiler Alert: the idiot shouting that dies real stupidly in the 1984 version.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@PaulW:
I piss on the Atlantic because it seems like for every Fallows and TNC piece of genuine thought, they bring out the kind of shit I pointed out, along with plenty of Both Sides Same Thing.
MikeJ
@PaulW:
Everything that happens in that movie happens stupidly. Scriptwriting, casting, direction, cinematography….
cathyx
@PaulW: So the Lincoln Memorial is not closed.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike Dixon, BFA:
The stupid. It BURNS!
Note: 1-800 numbers are in very short supply. Many telcos are unable to provide 1-800 numbers, so they have 1-887 or 1-888 numbers instead, same toll free concept, but not 1-800.
PaulW
All I really understand from the modern GOP’s obsession with gutting government isn’t that they really want to gut it: they want to control it, sell it off, make more money off it by funneling off entire billions meant for starving families and towards billionaires wanting to show off their no-bid contracts.
They want to rule, and if they can’t rule they will ruin. This was how they wanted to rig the game back in 1850 when they were Southern Slavery Democrats, and that’s how it is now that they’re Southern Strategy Republicans.
PaulW
@cathyx:
I think it is. I’m not entirely sure, last I saw they had a guard standing in front of the opening. Does anyone have pics of the Lincoln Memorial at the moment?
MikeJ
@PaulW: There are no cleaning staff to pick up.
Hungry Joe
One interesting aspect of Salad is that although you can learn to speak it and write it, you never really come across as a native. You can be chugging along just fine, flinging out indefinite antecedents and tying illogical Gordian knots like you went to Wasilla Elementary K-8… and then you let a declarative sentence slip through, and you’re outed.
Roger Moore
@Scotty:
I’m pretty sure their plan was more detailed than that:
1) Eliminate government functions
2) Nothing happens
3) People decide government is just a needless burden and vote for Republicans who will eliminate it
The problem is that the exact opposite of their 2) has happened. Shutting down the government has reminded people of the many small ways they depend on it, making the Republicans’ generally anti-government approach less plausible.
Seanly
@Jeff Spender: This is part of it.
But another part is that many people have no idea what the government is or does.
El CId in #51 hits on it also.
I’ve had arguments with folks about how we should privatize a lot of functions of the government. But they never know how those now private enterprises would make money.
SiubhanDuinne
@PaulW:
Yes, this. These people are mad in both senses of the word: angry, and infuckingsane.
PaulW
@MikeJ:
DON’T KNOCK THE CINEMATOGRAPHY! Some of the scenery in the 1984 version was damn sweet. The Rockies can be picturesque…
Also, for what I know Milius wanted it to be a full-on War-Is-Hell movie, but the studio kept wanting more action and rah-rah stuff. Also wik, the movie itself was supposedly based on a war game the Pentagon ran to see if a Soviet-style occupation similar to Afghanistan could happen in the U.S. The result is what you saw in the movie: a stand-off that could only work if the Soviets limited nuclear strikes to very few positions, and would ultimately prove impractical.
beltane
Just heard David Brooks on NPR. He sounded despondent, basically saying that the GOP is being run by lunatics who are in safe districts populated by other lunatics and who have no idea how crazy the appear to anyone who is not a lunatic.
MattF
@Hungry Joe: Wikipedia suggests that you need real mental illness to do it properly:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_salad
Suffern ACE
@balconesfault: I think Booman/Chait are probably correct. What they want is for Democrats to be seen cutting popular programs because they took a beating last year over their draconian “Ryan Plan”. What they have been hoping for all year is to avoid once again spelling out what they want to cut and how they want to reform entitlements or whose taxes they want to cut because those things are very unpopular. So they were hoping to get all that passed under the cover of night.
I mean good lord. Dennis Ross says he’ll fold on Obamacare, but then he wants to include means testing medicare instead. I guess that’s a compromise over voucherizing it, but come on. If you want to propose that, do that on October 1 of the new fiscal year, not September 29 of the old.
PaulW
@MikeJ:
WELL THEN DAMMIT LET’S RIOT.
Ash Can
@Bokonon:
This tells me that the House GOP true believers are serious about making impeachment of Obama their end game — via forcing him to take extraordinary measures in response to a default, which they’re hell-bent on causing for this exact purpose. They’re throwing everything plus the kitchen sink at preventing any progress in freeing their hostage. Unless they get kneecapped by a discharge petition or some other procedural machinations, all they have to do is to sit tight and resist the pressure to change the status quo until the Treasury says “Time’s up; we can’t pay any more bills” — at which point the prez will say, “OK, bitches, it’s go-time,”
Left Coast Tom
@Hungry Joe:
My translation: “I have nothing to say that won’t get me laughed at for stupidity, I’ll just speak in jibberish so nobody can nail me for any specific statement”.
MattF
@beltane: Poor David. No, actually, not.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
Not likely. You spelled both “repeal” and “Obamacare” correctly.
cathyx
@MikeJ: The mall is an open park. There are no paid people to clean up the garbage, but that doesn’t keep people from going there and using the park. The Memorials are dotted around the Mall, open to walk in, just like the rest of the park. Perhaps the museums are closed, and the Washington Monument may be closed since that is a building that can be closed, but I will assume that the others are open.
Roger Moore
@Seanly:
If you can’t make money doing it, it must not be worth doing. I think that’s from the Book of Ayn, Chapter 69.
MikeJ
@cathyx: .
Bullshit.
PaulW
The Rays just got their butts kicked this afternoon. I blame Ted Cruz.
Keith G
@Cole
Don’t be naive. What they think is that this is a bargaining pressure point. And in a way it is a sort of decent message as long as one doesn’t think too much. It’s not about logic. It’s about quick and cheap gotchas that can get airplay.
They are spit-balling – throwing all the shit they can and seeing what might stick. That’s what worried people do.
Our side just has to stay brave, stay on message, and keep Harry Reid away from the fucking mics.
cathyx
@MikeJ: You idiot, you said there wasn’t any cleaning staff, I was just taking it for granted that you knew what you were talking about. I won’t make that mistake again.
PurpleGirl
They’re surprised that the fairies aren’t providing the money to pay for things like roads, parks, other stuff.
Violet
John, your mistake is in using logic in an attempt to understand Republicans. Like Colbert parodies perfectly, they go with their gut–logic need not apply. If it feels patriotic, do it.
? Martin
@beltane: Reap/sew.
Ash Can
@beltane: Whoa. When even Professional Centrist David Brooks starts getting shrill, you know the GOP’s signal is getting scrambled. (I’m sure Brooks will come to his senses and make some pronouncement tomorrow about how uncivil and downright meeeeeen Obama and the Dems are being, but just to see the facade slip this much is something.)
Jay in Oregon
@? Martin:
Yeah, all they have to do is ignore the 1 and pretend there’s an 8 on the end, and Obama is telling the American people “FUCK YOU” in his phone number.
Jesus, these people.
jl
As I’ve said before, the antics have gotten as bad, or maybe worse than California GOP behavior before before that group imploded electorally.
I also said before, that even super gerrymandered CA legislative districts could not stop that implosion. And I was proud of my comment and dreamed happy dreams for a moment. Until a commenter politely reminded me that the voters passed an initiative that took redistricting out the legislature’s hands and put it under a citizen’s commission.
On the other hand, I heard a news report that GOP share of registered voters in CA is now below 29 percent and has been dropping fast.
So, looks like a race on whether the national GOP will implode before they can explode us all.
ranchandsyrup
@Ash Can: He’ll go with the “this is Obama’s fault because he fails as a leader”.
Cacti
Because old white people aren’t supposed to be inconvenienced by a shutdown, only undeserving coloreds.
Suffern ACE
@ranchandsyrup: He just isn’t providing any direction!
Suffern ACE
@ranchandsyrup: He just isn’t providing any direction!
Belafon
@Jay in Oregon: Yeah, Obama picked the number and then screwed it up for no reason.
@Mike Dixon, BFA: You should reply “yeah, when people start believing this kind of crap, I do, too.”
dmsilev
New offer on the table from House GOP:
cathyx
@efgoldman: Ok. But the initial discussion about the monument being closed was made by Martin, who doesn’t know what he’s talking about because he stated that the monument was closed because of the budget cutbacks. Which isn’t true.
Southern Beale
John would have been ready to guzzle antifreeze after seeing Volusia Co. Rep. John Mica on MSNBC. How these people robotically stick to their talking points like brain-dead robots I do not know. And when asked about Head Start schools closing in his own district all he could say was, well, Head Start doesn’t perform all that well, everywhere, all the time.
It was un freaking believable.
jl
This post inspired me to spend a few minutes hunting for new GOP insanity that will render them ridiculous, both hilarious and disgusting to the general public (if not their base).
Took one second, IMHO.
And every day millions of people are visiting, or revisiting, the Exchange websites and IMHO, feeling more empowered, informed and secure about their health care insurance. That will be important
Cruz: GOP Already Compromised By Demanding To Defund, Not Repeal Obamacare
TPM
talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cruz-gop-already-compromised-by-demanding-to-defund-not-repeal-obamac…
Edit: and Cruz said it on the Senate floor, and took upon himself to speak for all GOP Senators and House Reps. He wasn’t drunk, it wasn’t a slip up or casual comment. And it is perfect for nightly news and head talky show sound bite. Amazing.
Hill Dweller
@ranchandsyrup:
Predictably, Noonan is already saying Obama has to lead like Reagan.
ranchandsyrup
@Suffern ACE: Had this conversation 3 times in the past couple of days. Two of them sent me the same Lexington column from the Economist saying “Obama is no LBJ”. No shit. The best is that they all admit that the Teapeople are extremists. But demand that Obama not alienate the extremists and consensus build.
Southern Beale
@cathyx:
Whaaa….? It wasn’t closed because of the govt shutdown?
Southern Beale
@Hill Dweller:
And how exactly did Reagan lead? By falling asleep i meetings and drooling into his oatmeal in an Alzheimer’s-fueled fog, leaving the real work to his unelected minions?
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@joel hanes:
I did the same, except I made it until mid-2011. I used to read it cover to cover the day it arrived.
The Other Chuck
@cathyx: The Washington Monument has been closed since the earthquake in 2011 that damaged it.
Bah, I really ought to click reload first.
SectarianSofa
@beltane:
Re: Brooks
Yeah, the jackass had been saying, “Maybe I’m being a Pollyanna here, but I don’t think a shutdown will happen.” (paraphrased from the PBS Newzhour segment)
No shit. I hope he stays awake long enough to realize he has been enabling and emboldening these motherfuckers for years.
cathyx
@Southern Beale: See efgoldman@101 for an explanation.
j
CLOSE ALL THE AIRPORTS NOW!!!!11 !
Sorry for yelling, but that’ll get the teatards saying “gulp”.
Roger Moore
@jl:
I think the value of the citizen’s redistricting commission is grossly overstated. To give it a bit of perspective, the Republicans were the ones who proposed the commission in the first place, though they changed their minds when they saw the districts. It’s hard to believe they would have done better had the Democratically controlled legislature still been in charge of drawing the districts. If anything, the Republicans maintained relevance for longer than they should have because the 2000 redistricting was a joint effort to gerrymander for safe districts for both parties. If the 2000 districts had been created by an independent commission, the Democrats might have gotten 2/3 in each house of the legislature a couple of elections earlier.
johnny aquitard
@El Cid:
This is what I find so disgusting and infuriating about these people. They are constantly carrying on how they are the party of personal responsibility, fiscal acumen, sound judgment etc and you libtards want to live in a fantasy consequence-free world, full of foolish moonbat ideas ungrounded in reality, child-like about money and owning up to responsibilites. The hypocrisy could gag a maggot.
Projection, projection, projection. It’s always projection with these damaged-personality people.
Moonbatting Average
@Mike Dixon, BFA: F1UCK YO needs to become a mocking meme ASAP
Hill Dweller
@Southern Beale: Chris Matthews was on Colbert’s show extolling Reagan’s virtues. He said Reagan was a much better President than Obama.
Omnes Omnibus
@cathyx: Closed does not necessarily mean inaccessible to the public. Many cities, for example, have parks that close at 11pm or midnight and open at 6 or 7am. People can still go into those parks because they are not completely fenced off and gated, but they are, nevertheless, closed. Bathrooms are locked, staff is absent, etc.
scav
@ranchandsyrup: Ask them if Israel should give Hamas what it wants in order to work with extremist elements. Wouldn’t want to alienate people.
SectarianSofa
@Moonbatting Average:
Hilarious. I think it could work.
Baud
@Hill Dweller:
Talk about Stockholm Syndrome.
Omnes Omnibus
@Hill Dweller: I don’t understand Matthews at all.
Roger Moore
@Moonbatting Average:
Ford to City: Drop Dead!
Obama to Tea Party: F1UCK YO
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
More book hawking.
Suffern ACE
@jl: Did you know that Obamacare costs something? I wasn’t aware that a major transformation of a trillion dollar industry might cost billions! And some of those costs aren’t going to go away! But let’s repeal those taxes and then say “The Democrats are exploding the deficit.”
God, they really are boobs. Oh, I have one. Uninsured people can just sign up for government employee plans. Let’s take a pool of workers that includes a normal distribution of working adults and fill it with a disproportionate number of sick people and then complain that government workers cost too much money. How come that plan wasn’t discussed instead of Obamacare? Well it kind of was for awhile, but it was kind of dismissed, but hey, I wasn’t in office when it was discussed so we might as well forget that discussion ever happened and do it all over again.
LanceThruster
PaulW
@efgoldman:
The Shutdown has gotten the Rays players upset that their grant funding on silly string is going to dry up.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suffern ACE:
No, boobs have more than one beneficial function. They don’t have a single one.
PaulW
@Baud:
Just as long as it’s MY books being hawked… >:-)
gvg
There are too many people like W who are incurious and never bother to think about how anything works. They think our safe for business country just happened naturally like a forest or prairie before man. they honestly don’t seem to know that a law abiding society is nessesary (police, courts, lawyers, contracts, laws, lawmakers…etc.) are something that is built, funded, modified by experience and doesn’t just fall out of the air magically. It’s been there all their lives and their parents lives, they don’t know it’s not natural. They don’t understand medieval history and how crippling the seeking of security and wealth is when our elaborate laws don’t exist. People used to hide their money in mattresses not invest them. And roads…my lord they don’t think about where roads come from or that government is required to condem/confiscate property and taxes to pay for the property when roads need to get bigger or go new places. They don’t understand we would starve without roads and most businesses couldn’t get anything to sell nor buyers to buy without roads. courts protect contracts and punish theives etc.
they have never thought. I don’t know why. I’ve tried to explain to several. It seems so obvious and interesting to me. that kind of mind doesn’t get it and won’t wonder. I don’t get them. It’s so much fun to figure out the different connections. But anyway they aren’t the type to take something apart to understand it then put it back together. they don’t even notice there is something to think about but just wander blindly by.
The real doofuses also seem to hate anyone who makes them feel stupid….I know you can’t win hearts and minds when you point and laugh but sometimes I’ve been too surprised to hide my reaction and these days I’m just so angry.
muddy
@Hill Dweller: Because he ended the Cold War, he said. It’s so true, I remember how he tricked the evil Soviets into bankrupting themselves by pretending he was going to plow a bunch of $ into his Star Wars program. Masterful.
LanceThruster
@Scotty:
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. ~ Albert Einstein
nineone
C’mon John Cole, I think we all know what’s really what’s pissing them off, now don’t we? By the time O gets done with them they’ll be begging for “Uncle Billy” solutions as an alternative.
Check and mate, motherfuckers. Don’t say you were not warned.
Hill Dweller
@Omnes Omnibus:
Liberals aren’t buying a book on Reagan. I suspect Tweety is pandering to the wingnuts. Without them the book isn’t going to sell.
SiubhanDuinne
@Belafon:
I am impressed by the President’s meticulous attention to detail.
“Not a sparrow….”
SiubhanDuinne
@? Martin:
Um, Reap/Sow.
So.
Suffern ACE
@SiubhanDuinne: Maybe it’s flax or hemp and we’re making clothing?
Matt McIrvin
What they wanted was for Obama to fold instantly and give them everything they wanted. Since he didn’t, shutting down the national monuments is his fault.
piratedan
@Roger Moore: sorry Roger, two examples…. one California, does California ever escape gridlock without independent redistricting? 2nd example, see Arizona Congressional redistricting, same thing and now AZ has 5 democratic reps, no way does that happen if the R’s are in charge and allowed to continue to gerrymander the lines… hell they tried to impeach the board commissioner here because they were being “impartial” in attempting to maintain some regional balance by county and region. Independent redistricting is supposed to create geographically homogenous districting versus these exercises that the R’s use to create one 85% D district and then four 55% R ones.
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: Who is to say that the president wasn’t referring to duck you.. really..
Mike in NC
@Hill Dweller:
Tweety is such a mendacious goddamn asshole. Of course the teabaggers would love nothing more than for Zombie Reagan to rise from his grave to lead them out of the wilderness they find themselves in.
SiubhanDuinne
@Southern Beale:
I thought John Mica had been in Congress for about a million years, and was about 80,000 years old. (Actually, I thought he was dead, seriously.)
Fuckitall. He’s younger than I am.
John O
Matthews is a Slate-esque contrarian who knows where his bread is buttered.
And that’s all I have to say about him.
I used to be a TV political junkie. Sure glad I kicked it.
Suffern ACE
@Matt McIrvin: What they wanted was for him to fold but never meet with them in negotiations unless he promised in advance to fold. Why he would let them come over to clown around again is beyond me.
Mike G
“Government” is just a magical word to which they can attach all the stuff they hate, and because WANTING it to really, really be true makes it true in Peter Pan movies and Teanut fantasies. It bears little or no resemblance to the actual functions performed by the US government in the far-off land they have never visited, called “reality”.
Left Coast Tom
@piratedan: California would have escaped gridlock anyway because the voters removed the 2/3 requirement to pass a budget.
Cacti
@piratedan:
Yep, she was fired by GED Jan for not gerrymandering enough Republican seats, and had to be reinstated by the AZ Supreme Court.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@cathyx:
There are Park Police present when they are open. Certainly every time I’ve been.
Cacti
@efgoldman:
Tweety has a mancrush on Republican daddy figures.
joes527
@Belafon: OK. Now I’m itching to call 800-382-5968 to see who aced Obama out of the # he really wanted.
Baud
In case you come across the latest lie:
The Other Chuck
@joes527: My guess is it’s the RNC.
JPL
@Mike Dixon, BFA: Some folk have dirty minds. They need to ask the lord for forgiveness. I saw the numbers and thought of
dual
duck
dub
fub
eta
I just didn’t imagine the fuck..
dmsilev
@Mike in NC: Tweety can’t (or won’t) understand that the basic political landscape today is not very similar to the reality in the 80s, never mind the nostalgic memories of the 80s that he mistakes for reality.
Felonius Monk
The smell of bullshit permeates the House of Reps and seems to emanate from
Boehner’s office (via):
As Charlie Pierce has stated many times, Boehner’s balls are locked away in a jar somewhere and the TeaFarts won’t give them back.
Bill Arnold
@MattF:
For most moderately smart people, thoughts are roughly the size of oranges, and they can squeeze two of them into their head at time. Some really smart people have more compact thoughts (limes or small tangerines) and can fit maybe 3 or 4 (or more) into their head. The crowd we’re talking about, their thoughts are the size of grapefruits.
Baud
I swear, there have been more Republicans on MSNBC in the last month than I’ve seen over the last 4 years.
Roger Moore
@piratedan:
I guess that what I’m saying is that there are two possible outcomes to gerrymandering. One is that the party that controls redistricting will try to divide things up unfairly in a way that gives their party an unfair advantage. That’s the main one people talk about. But here in California, we had a different problem. Politicians of both parties got together in 2000 and decided to redistrict in a way that made noting but safe districts for politicians of both parties. The result was a state legislature that had almost zero turnover except when legislators were termed out and which barely changed in partisan composition even as the state as a whole shifted substantially to the left. It encouraged the minority to be just as intransigent as they’re being in Washington because the legislators had no fear of losing reelection.
But that was an inherently unstable situation. It was going to change on redistricting no matter how the redistricting was handled. The non-partisan redistricting commission gets the credit for the shift in the partisan makeup of the legislature, but there’s no reason to think the Democrats were going to cut the same deal with the Republicans this time around. They were just a few seats away from making the Republicans completely irrelevant, and it’s hard for me to imagine they would have done anything but a severe partisan (as opposed to pro-incumbent) gerrymandering had the process been left in their hands. The Democrats may have lost out on a few seats from the new system, though I think that democracy was well served.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Southern Beale: And they’d work better if we privatized them. I saw that “interview” as well, it was more like a speech by Mica with RevAl trying to get a word in edgewise.
jefft452
@Zifnab:
“That they would be greated as liberators”!
my hat is off to you, sir
Original Lee
I think I must have been listening to Goopers for too long. Seriously, I am trying to explain why we need a CR at all to a group of sixth graders, whose teacher has given them the chart on Thomas, and my brain is mush. Help. me.
Baud
@Original Lee:
Actual sixth graders or Republicans?
Matt McIrvin
@Original Lee: Because the House Republicans refuse to dignify Obama by passing an actual budget. It suddenly became impossible for a budget to occur the moment he entered office.
SiubhanDuinne
@Suffern ACE: Seaux.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL: His own version of Duck, Duck, Goose.
Howard Beale IV
Let’s pray that the Teaheadists all have massive heart attacks/strokes. Then they can appreciate the ACA.
Just One More Canuck
@Rommie: I hear that in Bullwinkle’s voice: “This time for sure!!”
cathyx
@Howard Beale IV: It won’t do any good now that they can have obamacare.
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: My phone number is boring. I demand a new phone number and I blame obamacare.
Howard Beale IV
@cathyx: Shhh. Don’t tell them that. It’ll put them into a non-Turing state.
Cervantes
@Ash Can: They aren’t pissed off by it, they’re just pretending to be.
Exactly.
Roger Moore
@Original Lee:
Basically, the real world process for spending is more complicated than for other bills. There are two parts to the spending: a budget, which is the overall spending plan, and individual appropriations bills that actually pass out the money in somewhat more detail than the budget spells out. This year, the House and Senate passed substantially different budgets. Rather than go to a conference committee to iron out the differences, they’ve just let the budget sit there. Because there’s no budget, they also haven’t passed any of the individual appropriations bills, either. So now the new year is starting, and Congress hasn’t actually told any of the departments how much money they can expect to have (budget) or told them to spend it (appropriations).
Roger Moore
@JPL:
Obviously, you need to get an Obamaphone.
Bill Arnold
@Ash Can:
It takes a willful suspension of rationality to believe that the Republicans are 1/2 right in this. There hasn’t been any serious compromise proposed by the Republicans, just extortion. A very short term extension of the budget at sequester levels/debt ceiling (or both), in return for gutting the ACA? A compromise involves mutual concessions. If agreeing to fund the United States government is a concession, then the Republicans do not believe that the United States government should be funded. One could interpret that as a violation of their oath of office.
Original Lee
Sorry: Here is the link. By my count, 4 of the 12 bills have passed, which is not zero (Nancy Pelosi’s claim), but not 10, either (Cantor’s claim which he only said once, last week).
Tripod
Simple google search sez…… Lincoln Memorial is closed.
Original Lee
@Baud: Actual sixth graders. We are having a game night, and they brought their social studies homework with them because Original Son told them I could help.
dexwood
@Matt McIrvin:
Yup. A variation of the old, hey, you fucked up, you trusted me.
Ash Can
@Moonbatting Average:
Heh! It reminds me of the bumper sticker “Don’t like my driving? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT.” “Don’t like the results of free and fair elections? Call 1-800-FUCK-YOU.”
Baud
@Original Lee:
Ok. Well you’ve already gotten better answers from others. To dumb it down for sixth graders, I would just say:
The Constitution says Congress has to approve all spending.
Congress hasn’t done that because Republicans and Democrats don’t agree on what the spending should be.
Congress could give temporary approval while they work out their differences — the CR — but the Republicans are refusing to do that.
That’s why the government has shut down.
Original Lee
@Roger Moore: That explanation is tremendously helpful. Thank you. I knew that there was something with the House refusing to name conferees, but if you look at the Thomas table, it looks as if the House has done something while the Senate has done nothing. The teacher wants a detailed explanation of why the Thomas table does not reflect reality. *Sigh*
Villago Delenda Est
@Hill Dweller:
Chris Matthews has passed his sell by date.
Matthews should have been buried as one of the retainers for the afterlife in the shitty grade Z movie star’s pyramid.
Original Lee
@Baud: I started with the statement that the Senate can’t do anything on its own, because all spending has to start in the House, but again, the Thomas table contradicts that.
I’m glad that the teacher is making them look at nuts and bolts, but this was a very complicated example to start with.
p.a.
My apologies to all here who live in said area, but it’s time to show the clown teahadist base who really gets gvt socialism: write a bill privatizing the TVA. If it can be done by exec order, even better. MY energy use isn’t subsidized. Why should theirs be? It sickens me to say this; attacking one of the great New Deal successes is maddening. But that area is front and center of the revanchist rump. Time to go on the offensive.
Suffern ACE
@Southern Beale: I assume she means campaign against Democratic Party and defeat Mondale soundly in the upcoming election.
Ash Can
@Felonius Monk:
If this is true — and I’ve never seen any evidence to make me think Reid would be lying about this — then no wonder Reid’s pissed at Boehner. He’s been totally, blatantly double-crossed.
Baud
@Original Lee:
I think bills to raise revenue have to start in the House, not spending. Although most spending bills do both, I think, so that may be where the confusion is.
Tboneakm
Maybe this has already been pointed out, but…
I freaking love the fact that now all the sudden conservatives are all the sudden willing to pay MORE to the government to suddenly fund a couple items they happen to like.
Guess what, geniuses? That stuff comes with no extra costs when the gubmint is running.
It’s almost like they want to pay more in taxes….
WereBear
I do.
Omnes Omnibus
@Original Lee: Article 1, Section 7, Clause 1 states: All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
That is, legislation dealing with spending has to start in the House.
ETA: The Senate can amend the living hell out of the bill, but it has to start in the House.
Original Lee
@Baud: That makes sense. The Thomas table shows both a House and a Senate version of each of the 12, so I guess I need to go read the Wiki on this.
Ash Can
@Hill Dweller: I think Tweety constructs his programs based on what kind of hate mail he gets that day. He criticizes the Republicans, he gets hate mail from them, then he criticizes the Dems. Then he has Dem viewers e-mailing him, telling him he’s a horse’s ass, so he goes back to criticizing the GOP. Maybe he’s just nothing but a spinning weather vane.
MomSense
@Hungry Joe:
That is some serious salad spinning. Makes me dizzy. WTF are they even trying to say??
Original Lee
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks. I was pretty sure I was right on that. I’m still going off to read the Wiki. Listening to Goopers all day is making me doubt what I thought I knew.
Omnes Omnibus
@Original Lee: This has a very good thumbnail on it.
Nut ‘graf:
Mike Dixon, BFA
@Belafon:
Well, I read this:
And replied as if it was common knowledge that the dumb gummint had been using this number for almost 15 years.
I decided against adding something about how Dubya ignored this atrocity, but apparently he doesn’t care about our children either.
Mike Dixon, BFA
@Moonbatting Average:
As I said to my family just this morning “Who the Eff-One-Uck ate all the Cheerios?”
Smiling Mortician
The thread’s probably dead, but they’re not giving the government (aka the people) a swirly, they’re fucking waterboarding it.
Villago Delenda Est
@gvg:
I share your perspective of it. I’ve always been intellectually curious, and I’ve had some great teachers to encourage and nurture that curiosity. Understanding how things work has always been one of my major pursuits. I can’t just accept things as being given, I have to know something of the history of them as part of that understanding.
Unfortunately, there are many in society who actually seem to think that all that is fell from the sky one day, miraculously.
It’s pure bullshit, and it’s one of the things that you, I, and Elizabeth Warren are united in fighting.
Original Lee
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s very clear. So it looks as if the Senate hasn’t done its amendments to any of the four bills the House passed this summer. Probably they were too busy with the Farm Bill or something. Gah. This is depressing.
gorram
@Mike Dixon, BFA: It maps better to DUBLYN as in Chicago-based rapper Lennex Dublyn, so clearly BO is doing a shout out to his down and out homeboy.
Duh.
El Cid
@johnny aquitard: They fundamentally refuse to accept that there can be any negative consequences to any of the the things they demand; since they are Holy Acolytes and none doing the will of the Lord (or The Founders, or Free Enterprise, or whoever) could cause any consequences undesired by their tribe.
Omnes Omnibus
@Original Lee: I think the Senate knew nothing rational would come through the House and it would come to a CR in the end. So why waste time on it?
ETA: The way Reid is working these days, it may be intentional to set up the fight. Or I might be reading to much into it.
Original Lee
@Omnes Omnibus: Or, possibly, they wanted to bundle the bills together to do some effective(ish) horsetrading. Or, they knew the House would never pass all 12 – and they were right!
KS in MA
@Hungry Joe: Yes, because the #1 requirement for speaking Word Salad is that you have no idea whatsoever what you’re talking about.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
No; that says revenues, not expenditures, so it’s talking about bills involving taxes, fees, etc.
Chuck Butcher
Both the House and Senate passed budgets, the GOP refused to allow Conferees to resolve the two budgets, you might stop to remember the Ryan “Budget,” and unsurprisingly the Senate didn’t go along?
Omnes Omnibus
@Roger Moore: But, as it has played out over time, it covers appropriations as well.
Quaker in a Basement
What exactly did they think would happen?
Flying monkeys. Asses. Figure out the rest by yourself.
Roger Moore
@Original Lee:
The Ryan/House budget kept overall spending at sequester levels, but it returned defense (and IIRC Homeland Security) spending to pre-sequester levels and made up the difference by gutting the rest of the government. I don’t remember the details of the Senate budget, but I think they raised spending modestly from sequester and tried to keep the pain spread across the whole government. They’re very different budgets and need to have their differences ironed out, but the Republicans have refused to appoint anyone to a conference committee from either house.
The Senate position seems to be that they need to have an actual budget before they bother to talk about appropriations, because otherwise their bills will set radically different spending levels and have exactly the same impasse with the individual appropriations that they have with the budget. The House has gone ahead and started working on appropriations based on their own budget assumptions, but they’ve basically been able to pass appropriations for the favored departments whose budgets they restored. The Senate is basically holding up those bills in an attempt to force the House to negotiate on the whole budget; they’re justifiably worried that if they pass appropriations for the House’s favorite departments, they’ll lose leverage to get the spending levels they want for their favorite departments.
Suffern ACE
@Roger Moore: You mean they aren’t fooled bythe tactic zeroing out food stamps from the farm bill with some notion that the food stamp appropriation will be bought up “later”?
AxelFoley
@Roger Moore:
I had to.
Roger Moore
@Suffern ACE:
Not so much that- though it’s worth pointing out that the Agriculture bill didn’t manage to pass the whole House- as that the only appropriations that have managed to pass the House are Defense, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and Energy/Water. If the Senate passes those, they lose all their negotiating leverage to get favorable spending priorities for the remaining spending bills where the House is trying to gut spending so severely even they can’t figure out what to get rid of without pissing too many people off.
Suffern ACE
@Roger Moore: Yeah. The other point though is that the bills that have passed aren’t just the House favored departments vs. the Senate favored departments. Both parties love defense. Its that the Senators also would like there to be funds for roads and actually haven’t been trying to abolish the departmnet of education for 30 years.
liberal
@gvg:
The stupidest thing about it is that these people worship property, yet without government there’s no such thing as property. Yes, there’s possessions, but that’s not at all the same thing.
jl
@liberal: You’ve been reading that communist Ben Franklin again, haven’t you?
Omnes Omnibus
@liberal:
And without government, they won’t have the possessions very long either.
cckids
@JPL: Because, of course, you couldn’t possibly take those combos of letters to spell anything else.
Do these people have nothing to do with their lives? I’m home taking care of my son, so I do have some time, and it would never occur to me to dick around trying to make words out of phone numbers.
Also, as if the 800 number is the main access point. All that gets publicly referenced is healthcare.gov.
Omnes Omnibus
@cckids:
Healthcare.gov is an anagram for “Each Hag Revolt.” Think about it.
Chuck Butcher
with 3-4 letters per number it is pretty easy to string letters together…
hamletta
@SiubhanDuinne: You reap what you sow; you hem what you sew.
slippy
@Zifnab:
Can confirm. Had a former friend from the NOLA area. His parents after the hurricane destroyed their humongous house had to suffer living in a marble-floored, 4,000-sq-ft hovel while they waited for all the permits to go through to build the gigantic concrete fortress replacement. I’ve seen the pics and that thing is like 40 feet high and the first 20 or so are just the stilts to make sure they never have to suffer living hundreds of yards from their coastal mansion again.
Drove through NOLA proper and all the poor folks’ houses were just washed away and the people were gone. What happened there was fucking obscene.
slippy
@Zifnab:
Can confirm. Had a former friend from the NOLA area. His parents after the hurricane destroyed their humongous house had to suffer living in a marble-floored, 4,000-sq-ft hovel while they waited for all the permits to go through to build the gigantic concrete fortress replacement. I’ve seen the pics and that thing is like 40 feet high and the first 20 or so are just the stilts to make sure they never have to suffer living hundreds of yards from their coastal mansion again.
Drove through NOLA proper and all the poor folks’ houses were just washed away and the people were gone. What happened there was fucking obscene.
slippy
@Zifnab:
Can confirm. Had a former friend from the NOLA area. His parents after the hurricane destroyed their humongous house had to suffer living in a marble-floored, 4,000-sq-ft hovel while they waited for all the permits to go through to build the gigantic concrete fortress replacement. I’ve seen the pics and that thing is like 40 feet high and the first 20 or so are just the stilts to make sure they never have to suffer living hundreds of yards from their coastal mansion again.
Drove through NOLA proper and all the poor folks’ houses were just washed away and the people were gone. What happened there was fucking obscene.
e.a.f.
it maybe concluded the republican taliban didn’t quite think this through. they didn’t understand what a government shut down entailed. they weren’t in touch with reality. Now that they have seen what a shut down is, closed parks and all, they still don’t understand. The would appear to be more concerned about closed parks than people with cancer or people trying to get fed. Ah, yes, Cruz is from Texas, the state which doesn’t like education all that much. Cruz and his crew are actually starting to make the real Taliban look good, when it comes to acting in a rational manner.
Chris T.
@Mike Dixon, BFA: It also spells DUCK WO(N). Clearly a reference to the Aflac Duck!
Alexandra
Both sides do it.
Matt McIrvin
It’s actually pretty simple: their ideal situation going forward is one in which the shutdown goes on forever, with narrow exceptions carved out for the portions of the government that House Republicans like. It follows that any bit they like that stays shut down is the Democrats’ fault for not agreeing to an exception.
p
in lieu of “drowning the government”, the right is “waterboarding” it.
PaulW
@efgoldman:
Bad games happen from time to time. You just don’t want them happening during the freakin’ playoffs.
That 5-run inning wouldn’t have been a problem if 1) the first base ump called that tag a third out or 2) the Rays catcher didn’t let that swung third strike get away from him, literally letting THAT third out still reach base. Goddamn logic of baseball, how the hell does a third out NOT end an inning?!
Anna
Maybe the wingnuts could try Somalia if they hate government so much.
yet another jeff
@Hungry Joe:
That’s what you get when you have a finite number of monkeys and a finite number of typewriters…
John Weiss
@srv: Dealing with stupid children.
Crusty the ex-clown
I thought F1UCK YO meant “Forty-1 Unhinged Conservative Kooks Yelling Obamacare!”
Pretty well describes the House Republican rump.
Uncle Ebeneezer
This thread is probably dead but:
I have a friend on FB screaming about how heartless Obama is for refusing to find a way to fund the NIH and let people visit Rushmore etc. I probably won’t bother with any response, but does anyone have a good link explaining the rules/logic of what is getting funded vs. what is not and who created those rules etc.? My stance is: anyone with half a brain knew that these things were gonna be shutdown and the GOP house decided to go ahead with it anyway so I have zero sympathy for people who now realize there are some parts of “government” that they like and feel entitled to bitch about the situation that their side forced into happening. Even if I wanted to try and explain the situation to my friend most of the links I can think of would either be too snarky or frankly would be over her head (given that she obviously doesn’t understand how politics work) but I’m still curious if anyone here knows a good, non-snarky explanation of why “It’s all Obama’s fault” is nonsense.