The Washington Post says that “Thursday is shaping up to be a critical day for any possible breakthroughs, with a series of key huddles of Republicans and meetings at the White House.”
Just possibly, the not-completely-insane members of the GOP might be looking for some disposable figurehead to blame for getting them into a battle it now seems they won’t win. Dana Milbank interviews “The shutdown’s enforcer-in-chief“:
“Obama will feel pain,” Michael Needham predicted.
Needham looked as though he were angry enough to administer the pain himself. The 31-year-old chief executive of the conservative group Heritage Action gripped his coffee cup tightly with both hands as he spoke to reporters over breakfast Wednesday. When he reached for his water glass, there was a slight tremor in his hand.
But the ones feeling the pain from Needham right now are Republicans. His group, funded by the Koch brothers and anonymous donors, is the one that joined Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) to rally opposition to Obamacare this summer. Together, Cruz and Heritage Action deserve much of the credit for forcing the government shutdown — and Heritage is threatening to use its considerable war chest against Republicans who waver in the effort to abolish the nation’s health-care law….
At the moment, Needham is fighting alongside Republicans. But Heritage Action’s broader goal is to turn the GOP into a “libertarian populist” party freed from Wall Street and K Street. Slate’s John Dickerson asked whether Needham was trying to force a confrontation to induce a “massive crackup of the old order” in the GOP.
“I’m pretty optimistic that it’s going to happen and it’s going to happen pretty soon,” Needham said.
Perhaps. But Needham won’t say who’s contributing to his populist movement or how much, other than the $500,000 from the Kochs. “The laws in this country are such that 501(c)(4)s don’t disclose their donors,” he told the reporters. “If you have a problem with that, you should change the laws.”…
And there’s this, from the AtlanticWire:
Koch Industries, umbrella corporate behemoth for the conservative Koch brothers, sent a letter to members of the Senate on Wednesday disavowing any rumored positions on shutting down the government over the president’s health care law. Even for the controversial and unloved Kochs, it seems, the Republican plan to force a shutdown over Obamacare went too far…
What the Koch letter says is not that the company doesn’t support the push to defund or block Obamacare. (This interesting analysis of why they support stopping the law is worth a read.) It simply attempts to put boundaries on the company’s involvement in those efforts: no lobbying, no support for blocking funding to stop Obamacare. And this applies to Koch Industries — not the Koch brothers who are the ones that cut the checks to Heritage Action and Generation Opportunity.
But the point is taken. Even the deeply unpopular Koch brothers think being associated with the shutdown is risky. And that says more than the letter itself.
Nice outcome for Boehner, Cantor, Ryan — even Cruz and the Koch brothers — if the “stupid, damaging” shutdown can be blamed on a thirty-something staffer who can disappear into the damp depths of wingnut welfare until the public outrage blows over. Mike Needham, an Ed Meese for a new generation!
Linda Featheringill
I like the idea of the Republicans feeling the need for a scapegoat.
Not sure, however, how significant these cracks in the Right Wing foundation are. We desperately want to find signs that the Evil Entity is cracking up and will go away and we may be exaggerating the importance of the signs that we see.
Some of the signs DO look good, though. I hope, I hope, I hope . . . .
Baud
The party of personal responsibility on full display.
WereBear
We always win when they don’t hide what they really want.
People fell for Bush’s “compassionate conservatism.” For years, Republicans campaigned on “no, we won’t stand on your necks and grind your faces in the dirt.” Even though they did and they did.
Now, there’s so many awful things Republicans say they are going to do, and then they do them, and then they brag about it!
billgerat
Watching the GOP start to sweat before they crack up right before the debt limit hits is fun, but the real fun will be after they lose and start arguing who’s fault it was for blinking first. Then when the Teahadists start primarying incumbents for failing their shutdown game and coming up with even crappier candidates to replace them the greatest fun will be seeing just how far the Democrats will get in taking back the house in 2014. The longer the shutdown, the greater the fratricide. It’s too bad so many have to suffer for their idiocy.
Elizabelle
Michael Needham of Heritage Action is a sociopath.
And maybe a poster child for why we need to overturn Citizens United. All that “free speech” money, hiding behind anonymous donors.
MikeJ
@Elizabelle:
If you think Citizens united is bad, just wait. Every limit of every kind is going to go away in the next year.
Linda Featheringill
@MikeJ:
I’ve heard that the new case before The Court is Citizens United on steroids.
Baron Elmo
Slightly off topic, forgive me:
My Republican brother just got a letter from Blue Cross telling him that his family policy, that he pays for out of pocket, will increase next year from $375 per month to $1150. As you can imagine, he’s in high dudgeon about this, hitting me with furious I-told-you-so’s about Obamacare in general. I admit to being a little surprised myself, having assumed that his costs would go down, not up. Anyone here have any advice for him, or thoughts on where he may have gone wrong? Conservative though he is, my brother is a right guy (which is why I’ve never given up on the possibility of getting him to pull a John Cole and swing to the blue side of the street).
Patricia Kayden
So this whole shutdown and threat not to raise the debt limit is to cause President Obama pain, huh?
So childish. “Obama will feel pain”. No, he’s already won his last election. He got the ACA passed. He’ll be the President until the end of 2016. He’s alright.
Linda Featheringill
Speaking of signs, Dr. Maddow said last night that Wall Street was beginning to wake up to the threat of default. About time, I would think.
Linda Featheringill
@Baron Elmo:
That sounds wrong. Obamacare should be able to get him a deal that’s better than that. Has he searched the exchanges?
[I understand. He’s still your brother.]
amk
@Baron Elmo: He can still try the fucking obamacare website. I think Richard or someone here posted how the for-profit insurance cos using such threat tactics as such their last hurray.
Also. Too. He is pissed off at Obama when it is his beloved private insurance company that is sticking it to him?
MikeJ
@Linda Featheringill:
the fact that UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH didn’t manage to buy them the last election will be used as proof that no regulations are needed.
Baud
@Baron Elmo:
I find it hard to believe that amount of increase is because of Obamacare. Something else is going on there.
sparrow
@Baron Elmo: 375 seems cheap for a family policy. How many insured? The only stories I’m hearing about major increases involve people no longer able to buy cheap catastrophic plans ( as I recall under ACA only the under 30 set can do that) and being forced into higher coverage levels. Which is not a bad thing for a family, in my opinion. Any chance of getting a subsidy? What can he get on the exchange?
Randy P
Exhibiting standard conservative lack of self-awareness, since this whole thing is about stopping Obamacare without changing the law.
JPL
@Baron Elmo: My son’s private plan also tripled but it is a better plan. The old plan didn’t cover some basic care and had a high deductible. He went on the federal government exchange program and was able to select a better plan at a lower cost. He was one of the few that could download plans and study them.
My son is now changing coverage and will have insurance available from his new job so the research was for naught.
sparrow
@amk: Yeah, I was thinking that also. There must be some temptation to target people who might avoid the exchanges for ideological reasons… A stupid tax, if you will. Still very wrong and shitty but shouldn’t last long once ACA gets in full swing.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Baron Elmo: What state? I understand a couple of states, Colorado for one, are really getting screwed.
gene108
@Baron Elmo:
Health care exchange. State exchange if his state has it or healthcare.gov, if not. Also I believe BCBS and other insurance carriers have their product options on their websites. They will not have any info on subsidies, but if govt sites are wonkie it is another place to go.
Ramalama
A couple years ago I had it in mind to do some sort of tap-the-outraged-RightWinger fundraiser (for yours truly) but pretend to stand for a nutjob cause. No fraud but very suggestive, relying on using vague comments / key words like “what about the Anchor Babies” – and then offering some sort of action like “Letting Washington Know!” that takes no skill in order to get people to fund my seemingly nutter position. But friends talked me out of it and I guess they were right.
But heading an organization to milk money out of greedy clueless rich people still makes my heart soar. Heritage foundation didn’t do their job but perhaps my new improved “Group Tank” (Rolling over the Masses) might yield interesting returns.
Botsplainer
That is an example of a young man in dire need of an up close and personal ass kicking, preferably by somebody who just walks into his office with a baseball bat and starts swinging without saying a word.
He reminds me of one of those shithead building contractors who stiffs his subs while still collecting the money from the job and when confronted, gets offended while whining that there wasn’t anything personal, it was”just business”.
On a funny note, a few years ago, I was collecting some money for a couple of vendors from a particularly odious contractor (I managed to be aggressive enough to pull 30 cents on the dollar during his bankruptcy in the face of political and bank pressure to give up liens to “keep him afloat”). Anyway, somewhere along the line during the BK, he was driving his wife, 16 year old daughter and another child into a Lexus dealership to by his little princess a car for her birthday. A laid off bricklayer whose employer had been stiffed and went out of business because of the contractor spotted him on the road and followed him in. Bricklayer zoomed in, yanked him out of the car, beat the living shit out of him in front of his family, and then, when his buddies bailed him out of jail, told them it felt right and that he’d do it again. I approve of messages like that.
magurakurin
I imagine that was one message that got through loud and clear. I’m not a violent person, but a word to the wise to those who wish to cheat and bilk others….some people are violent.
the story made me think of this immortal scene
dmsilev
Speaking of amusing news stories, this one in the NYTimes is interesting:
So, Dr. Frankenstein, now that your monster has, as it always does, rebelled against its creator and is now embarked on the inevitable rampage, how do you feel?
Does Amazon sell torches and pitchforks? Anyone up for storming the castle? I think we’ve reached that point in the plot.
C.V. Danes
Ha. HaHa. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Whew!
Good one!
C.V. Danes
@Linda Featheringill:
Exactly. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then the definition of expecting someone who is insane to start making logical and sane decisions is the definition of delusion.
amk
@dmsilev:
Karma is such a sweet, sweet beeyotch.
amk
Feed the snake, it’s gonna kill ya for sure.
Ramalama
Also – new found confession by Romans that they invented Jesus Christ.
Which means the end of the world as we know it, even to those Americans who are not Christians. Because then there’s room for …Mormonism?
I wonder how the Republicans will take it. Probably just like they do when they point out that Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble ate dinosaurus burgers.
Hill Dweller
There are still too many sociopaths in the Village claiming the shutdown is the Dems’ fault.
Baud
@amk:
@amk:
Oopsies.
dmsilev
@amk: The scorpion will *always* sting the frog. It’s in its nature.
Linda Featheringill
Tbogg [beloved of FSM] said of Ryan:
And of course Ryan is not the only one who feels this way. I think the entire upper crust shares this philosophy.
aimai
Every individual Republican just needs plausible deniability, which they think of in terms of what sells in their own district. Most of them simply don’t care–or enough of them anyway–so they can each choose their own scapegoat. For some it might be this heritage foundation dweeb, for others it might be the Jooz or the Pilate preventing the second coming, it just won’t matter when the herd breaks and runs. You can bet that they will not get organized around a scapegoat because they couldn’t organize their way to pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel.
Kay
Sherrod Brown was coming out to my county Friday for a meet with Democrats and he called and cancelled.
He left a message, says he has to stay in DC for the budget crisis, I’m assuming to be on hand to maybe take a vote.
NotMax
More like a Ralph Reed.
It does seem the GOP has never encountered the parable of the turtle and the scorpion.
aimai
@Ramalama: Well, I’m no christian but I doubt that this will make a dent in a 2000 year old religious belief set. Possibly because its complete nonsense. A few years ago Mr. Aimai and I went to a play based on a dissertation arguing that Shakespeare was really an African woman. We thought it might be interesting but it was incdescribably weird and dull, the product of a mind that was so crazy that, among other things, actors dressed as giant bees performed significant parts of the play. It was entirely serious. And therefore could not see the flaws in its logic or history. This guy at your cite strikes me as having the same mental blocks. Its one thing to argue that Jesus never existed. Sure. OF course. Its another to argue that the Romans took time out of their busy culture to fake the gospels. So not a Roman way of doing things.
Hill Dweller
@Kay: Harry Reid is going to try to pass a year long extension of the debt ceiling. Republicans have threatened to filibuster, but Reid said they’d use the nuclear option if necessary.
I hope it passes, because the House is thinking of passing a very short term bill. Although I can’t imagine why the GOP leadership would want their caucus repeatedly voting to raise the debt ceiling.
Baud
@Kay:
What do you think about the stories that Kasich will expand Medicaid by executive order? Desperate reelection stunt with good results?
dmsilev
@Kay: The Senate Democrats are planning to push through a debt ceiling bill without waiting for the House lunatics to do anything. Reports are that the first procedural votes might be today or tomorrow, and since those would be cloture-type bills, they’re going to need all of the Democrats plus a few reachable Republicans.
Gvg
I am ready to try to figure out how to boycott Koch stuff. their name is coming up tooften in a down right mean way. I remember that they own stuff so fundamental that they are hard to boycott but I want to see the list again. Can anyone tell me who their business competitors are? it might be easier to look at who I can buy from. it may be futile but I’m pretty steamed right now.
Valdivia
@Baron Elmo:
If he is self-insured the letter would tell him he has to sign up on the exchanges, or he can re-sign up by December on the same plan without the exchanges but that would increase his price and end up in the exchanges anyway after a year. I got my letter a few days ago and they give you a menu of options, they don’t tell you simply your monthly premium is going up (I too am on a Blue Cross program). My own premium goes down about 20 dollars a month, even without the subsidies. I don’t know what state he is in, but the letters seem pretty standard in the sense that they tell you that as a self insured person you now have to buy through the exchange and go on your respective site or the BCBS one which connects you to your particular exchange. They really give you tons of options, specially Blue Cross.
amk
@dmsilev:
Whaddayamean a few reachable repubs? If there was such an entity, US wouldn’t be in the present mess.
slim shady
I’m thinking Obama is not the only one who plays 11 dimensional chess. Call me crazy, but I’m starting to think the old guard GOP decided the best and quickest way to make Ted Cruz go away was to let him run with this.
NotMax
@Gvg
Perhaps this (not totally complete, but so far as consumer products go, pretty comprehensive) will be of aid.
agrippa
I do not know if those people are serious. But, at the end of the day, they will learn if they are serious.
Someone will be accused of being a ‘sell out’ ( scapegoat)
Someone will be accused of being ‘the idiot who thought this was a good idea’ ( scapegoat).
MikeJ
@aimai:
Since the bible is dozens of different books written decades apart, it would be incredibly difficult to fake. Not to mention the fact that hundred, if not thousands of people would need to have been involved, and there was no evidence of a conspiracy until now? Not very credible.
Ash Can
This is all tremendously amusing, in a gallows-humor sort of way, but it’s going to take a lot more than throwing some College Republican think-tank nebbish under the bus to walk back all the blame-Obama-and-Reid-and-the-Dems rhetoric. Blaming the whole shitshow on a think-tanker — a young one who, by definition of the blame, will be portrayed as incompetent, on top of it — will really make the House GOP look like a bunch of idiots who can’t do anything but sit motionless on the shelf until someone starts pulling their strings. I mean, that is what they are, of course, but they’ve been much better at hiding it in the past than this.
Then again, I’ve underestimated their incompetence in the past, so I suppose anything’s possible.
RosiesDad
@Baron Elmo: What sort of coverage can he have for $375? There must be an apples and oranges thing going on here.
Most likely, the $375 policy is non-complying (meaning that it doesn’t provide minimum coverage as required by the ACA) and the $1150 policy does. (By means of comparison, my family coverage through Aetna is $1500/month and we have stayed at about the same price point over the past 3 years by changing plans year after year to policies with higher copays and deductibles.)
That said, what other commenters have said–he needs to go on line and see what he can find through the exchanges. And when you talk to him about it, see if you can get specific info on what he is getting for his dollars. Because I don’t think he understands what he is paying for.
NotMax
@Baron Elmo
He might start at the 24/7, reach a live person, toll-free help line:
1-800-318-2596
TriassicSands
Obama may face a real dilemma in the coming days. Right now he cannot raise the debt ceiling on his own to prevent the US from defaulting — only Congress can raise the debt limit and he would have to break the law and violate the Constitution to act in their stead. But Princeton U. historian Sean Wilenz argues in the NY Times that once the country defaults Obama can use his “emergency powers” to prevent further damage. Wilentz is no fool, he acknowledges that the Republicans would respond by calling Obama a tyrant and the House might well impeach him. About impeachment Wilentz says this:
And, of course, the Senate would be unlikely to convict.
Unfortunately, the “two-step” remedy Wilentz suggests doesn’t prevent default, it only ends it more or less quickly. I’ve read other analyses that argued that Obama can prevent the default since he has to break the law or violate the Constitution whether he acts or not to prevent default. This argument says that Obama should choose the less harmful path and break the law/violate the Constitution by acting unilaterally to prevent default. It seems clear that Obama won’t do that. At best, he may have the Wilentz remedy as his fallback position should the Republicans force default.
Is the Wilentz two-step remedy a viable course for Obama to follow? Or will he lose both sides — those who say he has no power to raise the debt ceiling and those who are angry because he waited for default to occur before acting? This group (on the left) might argue that if Obama could act after the fact, then he could have acted prior to default.. According to Wilentz that reasoning would be wrong, but right and wrong seldom apply when Obama is involved.
debbie
@Linda Featheringill:
Maybe this sign will prove more significant: Glenn Beck is exhorting conservatives to “defund” the GOP.
I think Republicans have been able to delude themselves in the past because it didn’t personally affect them. Losing their funding hits them where it hurts — their wallets. I have a feeling that they finally may learn something.
gene108
@Hill Dweller:
Can you blame them?
So many here at Obot Central blame the Administration for the glitches in healthcare.gov
Despite:
1. HHS Secretary Sebelius asking private firms to fill the budget shortfalls in rolling out Obamacare, because Congress refused to increase funding;
2. Which was needed by HHS because so many states unexpectedly refused to set up exchanges (compared to how the law was envisioned when passed in 2010);
3. Many of whom waited to list summer’s SCOTUS ruling to decide as a deliberate attempt to undermine the ability of HHS to respond to their decision;
4. Therefore HHS has had to coordinate a front-end application that works uniformly for multiple users, though the back-end data systems are all different, the rules that apply to what they qualify for are all different;
5. And because the SCOTUS allowed states to opt out of the Medicaid expansion or, in the case of my state NJ, only expand it temporarily even the rules for that will be different;
6. Yet all of the blame is on HHS for not being able to cope with these problems thrown at them by Republicans in a deliberate attempt to undermine the implementation of the PPACA.
If Obot Central can knee-jerk blame this Administration for something like the glitches of healthcare.gov, without considering Republican obstructionism that helped cause those problems, why should non-Obots do anything but figure some blame belongs on Democrats?
I admit the media is generally incompetent, such as no follow up questions when Republicans rolled out “delay Obamacare for a year” to find out what parts of Obamacare will be delayed as most of the law has already gone into effect.
Until we make it abundantly clear to the masses, what problems are the fault of Republicans the natural tendency is to assume interactions with the Executive branch, which is currently run by Democrats, will be caused by the Democrats in charge.
In this regard we are fighting an uphill battle, because so many right-wing billionaires have their own media outfits to funnel right-wing talking points to the masses and there seem to be no such thing as a left-wing billionaire with a political axe to grind to counter balance the right-wing noise machine.
The only saving grace is Republicans tend to overreach, when given any kind of power that regular people will eventually notice.
Which is why, I guess, Republicans have to do as much damage as possible when they do have power.
Kay
@Baud:
I think we’ll get Medicaid expansion. I’ve said that all along. We have a private hospital here. It’s a small town, everyone knows the CEO. He’s constantly lobbying for rural health care subsidies. The fact is conservative counties (white lower income people) will all rely on Medicaid. I always thought providers would win. They want to get paid.
The Tea Party will go bananas. It’s huge for them. It’s the single issue for the Ohio Tea party. They will go insane, because Kasich gave everyone else what they want: huge tax cuts for rich people, abortion restrictions, more public school privatization, gutting environmental regs. The only people on the Right who won’t get what they want are the Tea party rank and file.
I don’t even think it helps him with his base, which are wealthier suburban voters. IMO, this whole “compassionate conservative” thing is over-blown. They don’t give a shit about Medicaid recipients. He’s doing it because providers are pressuring him.
RSA
Billionaires for the people!
And the “pain” quote really captures the essence of Republican behavior.
NonyNony
Hey no fair! Needham has completely stolen my plan for destroying the GOP while getting rich idiots to pay me to do it! Pretend to be a True Believer in Libertarianism and Zero Taxes For Rich People, set up a foundation to push this, force Republicans into more and more extreme positions until the whole house of cards falls down (and the rich guys paying my six figure salary look around and go “hey, what happened?”)
debbie
@Baron Elmo:
I also remember back in 2008, before Obama even was elected, when Anthem in California announced that they were raising their rates by 39%. Greed has always been a part of the insurance industry.
TriassicSands
It has occurred to me that default is precisely what some Republicans may want. Not only do they not see it as a bad thing, but instead it accomplishes a long-time goal of theirs instantly — a balanced budget.
Republicans have never been able to pass a balanced budget amendment (for good reason, it’s a terrible idea), but pushing the country into default means that we will have moved to having only the money coming in to pay bills — a kind of instant balanced budget condition. Republicans may secretly be hoping for exactly that. It’s what they’ve wanted for years…almost. This is reflected in the comments of Republicans who say they think default will be good for the US by sending the message to the world that we’re getting our fiscal house in order. Of course, this overlooks the fact that in a balanced budget we only incur bills we have money to pay for; whereas in this situation we will have mountains of accumulating bills for which we have no money to pay. To a Modern Republican that may sound like a minor detail and we all know that the Republicans don’t do nuance.
Suffern ACE
@amk: I’m really starting to laugh at those “we gave $32 million” numbers. Those are such tiny amounts in our Citizens United world. The Chamber isn’t going to be able to stave off one nutty oligarch that way. The Kichtapus spent $200 million in this anti Obamacare effort alone.
It’s shameful, but kind of funny. The Chamber is like the old farts who leave $2 tips for good service, and 50 cents for standard service and think the $2 is generous because that was a big tip 30 years ago.
Kay
@dmsilev:
I was wondering if the Senate Democrats would publicly produce the votes in the Senate to put pressure on Boehner. Isolate him. Say we have 51 or 60 (whatever-filibuster or nuclear plan, A or B) and here they are and we’re ready for the House to act. I saw McCain came out yesterday. Maybe it’s possible they get to 60.
debbie
@Kay:
I also think it’ll also piss off the Republican legislature overall. Batchelder’s head will explode.
nemesis
If businesses and the gop establishment are holding less sway of the teahadists today, one must wonder what the conservative landscape will look like with the new campaign laws, or lack of campaign laws, next year. Seems as if radicals like the usual suspects will be able to fund and elect their very own representatives who have zero allegiance to their party designations as republicans.
The fact that big anonymous money lost last cycle doesnt mean anything.
Eric U.
@gene108: again, I have failed to see a post using the word “obot” as a serious term without it being involved in a strawman argument. I think this post probably would have been a good post without that
NotMax
@Baron Elmo
Also, your relative might find this calculator of estimated costs of help.
Baud
@Kay:
Excellent news for the people of Ohio. And if it fractures the GOP there, all the better.
gene108
@Gvg:
Link
Another List
Kay
@debbie:
I don’t know. They’re slinking around, making mewling noises about “reform” which means privatization. They see something there they want. They sounded almost meek yesterday. He’s giving them something.
They won’t be able to say it publicly, because as you know they’re terrified of the Tea Party, but they sound like they see an opportunity to funnel more public money to their friends and publicly berate poor people in the process. so maybe it’s a win/win.
Botsplainer
@Ash Can:
The youngster’s hand tremor makes sense, as he is detecting that his paymasters have need of a low level scapegoat. Like Igor cringing in before the stern gaze of Dr Frankenstein, he trembles at the thought of wrath…
Anybodybuther2016
“Obama will feel pain,” Michael Needham predicted.
I see that little statement just flew over everybody’s head huh? Interesting. I wonder what would have happened if someone from a liberal think tank had the fucking balls to threaten George Bush like this little shit just did to PBO. Who am I kidding this scenario would have never taken place when GB was president because # 1 no liberal that wanted to keep his fucking job would never offer a veiled threat against a sitting repugnican president # 2 the sorry ass stenographer wouldn’t let a liberal get away with a statement like that without asking what the hell do you mean by the potus will “feel pain” # 3 every repugnican politician you’ve never heard of will be in front of every camera demanding that that person and the organization be investigated thoroughly until that person is ran out of town and the organization is shut down ( see Acorn, Shirley Sharrod). This mutherfucker threatens the potus and it gets glossed over on a liberal blog. Interesting.
Comrade Jake
“If you have a problem with that, you should change the laws.”…
Or, yanno, hold the country hostage. Because that’s the other option.
Kay
@Baud:
This idea that this is a huge ideological and philosophical stretch for low income white rural people is absolute nonsense. In a weird way, even the Tea Party people in this state are out of touch.
All of their kids are on Medicaid, and all of their parents are on Medicaid (nursing homes and poor elderly people). They are completely familiar with Medicaid. They’re the only part of the white low income population here who AREN’T on Medicaid, adults.
NotMax
“Heckuva job,
BrownieMikey.”gene108
@Eric U.:
I tried to use Obot for dramatic effect. Thank you for the critique.
Anyway, my general point is HHS has done a helluva lot on an underfunded budget to get the PPACA off the ground, with outright hostility from one house of Congress and non-cooperation from many states.
If you look at Apple or Blizzard or other roll-outs cited that had problems due to volume, they weren’t dealing with stakeholders trying make things hard on them, unlike Republican controlled states.
I think a good bit of the problems that healthcare.gov is experiencing have been caused by Republican intransigence and the refusal to set up state exchanges.
I personally think the silver lining in all of this is that since so many state exchanges are now run by HHS creating a national healthcare system will be easier in the long run.
You only have to integrate 20 or so state exchanges into a national system instead of 50 separate exchanges, which all run on different software.
JPL
Treasury Secretary Lew is testifying before the Senate Finance Committee. Isn’t it kinda early?
link
beltane
NYC socialites express fear of a post-Bloomberg era: http://www.cnbc.com/id/101099413?__source=xfinity|mod&par=xfinity
Seriously, fuck these disease causing parasites.
Suffern ACE
@gene108: yeah. If you were convinced that the Supreme Court would overturn the law, or postpone your need to participate, you might hold off on preparing for the exchange.
Botsplainer
Bible Spice is going to campaign for Lonegan in NJ.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/palin-to-campaign-for-lonegan-in-new-jersey
There are bound to be some awesome quotes.
The Pale Scot
Watching Washington Journal and hearing the daily GOP meme, today it’s all about “Double Dippers”, Guys in their 50’s from the Carolina’s complaining about soldiers doing their 20 getting a pension and working on base for contractors.
Stupid Fucks.
beltane
@The Pale Scot: They’re attacking their own base now.
Botsplainer
@The Pale Scot:
Sounds like the moaning of puffy, pasty-faced Duke graduates. They need to be careful – the demographic they’re disparaging probably runs at about R+30, in my experience.
Patrick
@Anybodybuther2016:
It is stunning, isn’t it. Our nation is currently at war. And some insignificant little low-life on the far right makes a remark like that about our Commander-in-chief.
Country first? The House Republicans behavior are beyond anti-American. Yet, the media is treating their behavior with more respect than they should. Blitzer on CNN had the gall to claim they were right in asking for a delay in the ACA. Simply shameful!
Emma
@Ramalama: His evidence seems to be mostly inferential and negative. Based on a “poetical” reading of Josephus? I’d hold on and see the actual discussion of his findings by other scholars before you start the party.
And to the Christian fellowship, it will mean absolutely nothing. What atheists, in their arrogance, don’t get, is that people’s beliefs aren’t based on logic.
Lurking Canadian
@MikeJ: in the linked article it appears there is still no new evidence of a conspiracy. The quote is the historian’s interpretation of the evidence. It’s not like he’s claiming to have found the lost diary of Picus Tiberius Barnumus, bragging about how he put one over on the suckers.
liberal
@aimai:
I agree, but I’d make a stronger statement than that.
If they really gave a cr*p, they’d start running political ads now. Sure, it’s expensive, but the Right is nothing if not flush with cash.
The fact that they don’t do things like that implies they care, but not all that much.
MikeJ
@Botsplainer: Didn’t Martin post polling yesterday that showed that the military voted for Obama by quite a bit?
beltane
@Botsplainer: I know. Why are they attacking a solidly Republican demographic group? Who’s next, evangelicals with large families? The numbers of billionaires in this country is very small, demonizing all non-billionaire Republicans seems to be a very short-sighted strategy.
And imagine if it were the Democrats labeling retired soldiers as moochers? The caterwauling would be heard on Jupiter.
liberal
@TriassicSands:
Yawn. He doesn’t need to raise the debt limit. All he has to do is take hand of the coin option. No one has put forth a valid legal theory against it.
Sure, it’s gimmicky. So what?
Suffern ACE
@beltane: well, maybe folks wouldn’t be voting for affordable daycare if these socialites would pay the help more. But why do I think the “don’t raise taxes; raise the pay instead” socialites are few and far between.
schrodinger's cat
@Ramalama: You should start a church.
Lurking Canadian
@beltane: I’m not saying Robespierre shoulda done it. But I understand
With apologies to Chris Rock
Kay
@debbie:
I do think there’s an interesting disconnect with Kasich. They are saying they’re hugely confident he’ll win, but they aren’t acting like they’re hugely confident he’ll win. Maybe that’s smart, they’re not over-confident, but he just seems to be so carefully calculating his every move.
I saw FitzGerald at a small campaign event here. He’s good. Really aggressive and smart with that scary focus extremely ambitious people have. I think he’s stronger against Kasich than it appears right now. FitzGerald is in full-on campaign mode. He’s just barreling along, and it’s so early.
beltane
@Suffern ACE: Most people do not work directly for a socialite. While these people may occasionally show generosity to a faithful servant (though not as often as you might think), mandating a living wage would be an equally unacceptable form of soc1al1sm to these plutocrats.
Botsplainer
@MikeJ:
I missed that, but the currently serving group is VERY different culturally from the current cohort of 40 and 50-something “double dippers”.
Emma
@Ash Can: The talk will never be walked back. There are Republicans around who still accuse FDR of being a traitor.
Ash Can
@Botsplainer: To be sure, but I really have to wonder how this scenario plays out. “OK, the guy coordinating our entire government shutdown campaign, who happens to be a low-level wonk barely out of college, was found with his hand in the till and was fired, so never mind all that stuff we said; we’re passing the clean CR and raising the debt ceiling and re-opening government.” Um, yeah. I just have a hard time seeing how they blame anyone other than someone right within their ranks — e.g. Ted Cruz or any or all of the Teahadi House faction — and make it look the least bit face-saving.
@Anybodybuther2016: The president gets threatened so often that if we lit our hair on fire every time it happened, there’d be nothing left to support our fingers on our computer keyboards. Instead, we tend to save the hair-lighting for times when people inside the same government, or people who actually run organizations of consequence, make that kind of threat. It’s called fatigue.
Original Lee
@beltane: I have my own reasons for worrying about a post-Bloomberg era. What is he going to do with himself if he’s not busy being mayor of NYC? The mind boggles.
Suffern ACE
@Original Lee: he’s going to buy the New York Times. And take away your 12 inch Blimpie whilst you’re not looking.
schrodinger's cat
@TriassicSands: This is bigger than Obama, the reputation of the United States is at stake.
Original Lee
@Suffern ACE: If I could feel secure in thinking the NYT would keep him busy, that would make me feel better. I have some work-related concerns about him that I can’t talk about here.
beltane
@Suffern ACE: Does Blimpies still exist?
Suffern ACE
@beltane: yep. They’re harder to find, but they have a few franchises left.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@The Pale Scot: There’s a lawsuit in North Carolina over a similar situation.
The lawyer handling the suit is Gene Boyce.
Botsplainer
@Ash Can:
Oh, I never did claim to think that they are actually smart, just that the asshole frat boy they made a figurehead knows that they’re aiming to make his head the one that rolls. When it all shakes out, the blame is going to fall on Cruz and Lee in the Senate (the utter invisibility of Yertle and the relative quiet of teabagger favorite Paul are really instructive there. The throwaways in the House are going to pretty much consist of the entire Texas GOP delegation, Bachman and a few other Deep South mouthbreathers. They’ll bleat nicely, and can readily be replaced with more compliant Republicans because of the heavy R+ district numbers.
geg6
@Emma:
Niiiice. This one guy, whose theory, I agree, is ridiculous, is who all atheists are. Just like the Westboro Baptist Church is who all Christians are, I guess.
NotMax
@Ash Can
Should it come to that, they’ll dig up some eight times removed cousin who once voted for a Democrat.
Ipso facto (and presto change-o), he’s a plant by the ‘enemy.’
Kay
The funniest thing about Republicans Since Obama (RSO) is how often they change “leaders.”
They have a new leader every month.
How many people had heard of this guy (outside Utah) before this latest stunt?
Hill Dweller
Initial unemployment claims for the first week of October spiked significantly.
Belafon
@Baron Elmo: BCBS went up so much for next year, after going up so much the previous year, that my company dropped them (they were going to go up 24%). Instead, the Aetna plans are going up 3%.
Robert Sneddon
@Lurking Canadian: I’ve long held a theory that the cult of Jesus was in fact a Roman plot. Palestine back then was rife was street-corner Messiahs and assorted anti-Roman groups stirring up trouble. Putting up a Prince of Peace who told folks not to rebel against their betters and to pay their taxes seems like an obvious move on the part of the occupying forces; most of the other would-be Messiahs were “War God of Israel” types. At the end of the Passion when Jesus on the cross cried out “My Lord, my Lord, why has thou forsaken me?” he was calling out to Pilatus, not to the God of the Jews as it finally sinks in that he’s been double-crossed. Paul takes over the cult afterwards to use it to strengthen Rome’s power in the area by widening its appeal.
The most historically factual movie ever made of that period I’ve ever seen was of course “The Life of Brian”.
ericblair
@Emma:
I’m quite sure you’re right about that, but knock it off with the “atheists in their arrogance” bit. Atheists aren’t the ones calling themselves the pinnacle of all creation and putting themselves at the center of the entire universe. As far as atheists are concerned, we’re intelligent primates (well, sort of), on a rocky planet around an unremarkable star in an unremarkable galaxy and no supreme being is ready to reward us with eternal bliss for apologizing to Him enough times. Our future is up to ourselves.
So, there’s no gooper plan to get out of this besides the Kenyan Usurper giving every teatard a pony, and there’s no exit strategy in case the “plan” fails. The Democrats-in-Disarray aren’t, and the lockstep goopers are at each other’s throats. Failure modes of authoritarian organizations tend to be spectacular.
TriassicSands
@liberal:
And there is the little detail that Obama has rejected the idea outright. I didn’t see any wiggle room in his rejection. For a second idea, see Kevin Drum at Mother Jones. Apparently, someone has proposed issuing a new bond with a face value of $1000, a price of $2000, and a very high interest rate. I wouldn’t expect Obama to go for that either.
If it’s between a “coin” and default, Obama seems to have made his choice.
IowaOldLady
@Baron Elmo: $375/month is an unbelievably low rate for family insurance. We have our insurance through Mr IOL’s employer, John Deere, and we pay over $700/month.
Anybodybuther2016
@Patrick: I don’t expect anything from the confederates or their sympathizers in the “liberal media” one of the commenters here compared these people to that alien cockroach from Men in Black. They think that if/when the nation crumbles they will be able to bring back the age of the robber barons with the hope of ruling a kingdom of serfs who will be grateful for any crumbs they give us. The part that makes me angry is the leftist know this yet every time this president makes any progress on behalf of the working/middle class you’ve got a bunch baying jackasses on the left saying its not good enough, big enough, soon enough. That shit is tiresome and It turns people off who would be allies if they felt like they could trust them.
Robert Sneddon
@liberal: Obama doesn’t do gimmicks. During the great “Gays in GI Green” affair lots of folks here and elsewhere in the Bloviosphere said he could fix things with an executive order, a wave of the hand, a gimmick. Instead he worked to get Congress to allow homosexuals to serve in the US military with no fear of prosecution or expulsion. That’s now black-letter law because it wasn’t a gimmick and it will probably never be overturtned or even questioned in the years to come.
“What happens next?” is the question you should be asking. The trillion-dollar coin gimmick would actually cause the world markets to collapse because they would see it as a stunt helping to destroy the “full faith and credit” which President Obama desperately wants to maintain. Even a default won’t cause that loss of faith if and only if it is clear to everyone he (and by extension the US Executive, Treasury and government) is trying desperately to solve the problem, not gimmick its way out of today’s bad news. There’s always a tomorrow, never forget.
virginia
@Gvg: See Boycott Koch Products or Boycott Koch Brothers. A list of some of their products. Also a link to a petition to encourage an IRS audit of their so-called non-profit. Sorry I don’t know how to provide you with a direct link.
TriassicSands
@schrodinger’s cat:
Of course it is, which is why I would expect Obama to be open to ways of avoiding default — whether or not they are ideal or conventional. On the other hand, I think he is right to do everything he can to force the House to raise the debt ceiling without conditions. The dilemma for Obama is that to do the right and best thing he can’t really talk about what he actually will do if the House remains steadfastly insane, which is highly likely. (Whether Boehner will blink and allow an up or down voter on a clean CR is another question.) The president is not in an enviable position — a position he must be getting used to after almost five years there.
Eric U.
the democrats are calling for me 3 times a day, but never managed to call when I was home. I finally got one of them on the phone and he said he couldn’t hear me and would call back. It’s probably the DCCC or DSCC, two groups that will never get a single dollar from me. It’s not that I don’t wish them well, but I refuse to give money to someone that will do something I don’t like and not do some pretty obvious things to improve the brand.
And they would just use the money to ask me for more money anyway, it’s really annoying when that happens
jeffreyw
Last evening I placed a corned beef into my electric smoker and set it to 175 degrees. This morning the temps were above 300 and the beef was charcoaled. I blame both sides.
WereBear
@Gvg: For paper products, I avoid Georgia Pacific. Been working for me with no trouble; turns out, I prefer Scott.
NonyNony
@Anybodybuther2016:
It didn’t sail over my head so much as strike me as ridiculous.
The idea that Obama is going to “feel pain” no matter what happens is stupid. When this is all over with and 2017 rolls around Obama will be a well off American ex-President. He can’t run for reelection. He’s got a guaranteed pension. He’s got guaranteed health care. He will be able to do pretty much whatever he wants and he’ll still be under 60.
Obama could just sit back and say “fuck it, let the country go into default and we’ll see who gets blamed for it” and, barring a second Civil War or French Revolution-style uprising it’s not going to hurt him one jot. The people who are/will be hurt by this are people whose livelihoods depend on the Federales. And with one or two degrees of separation that happens to be everyone in this country who works for a living, but not really so much the guy in the Oval Office. Funny how that works out, I guess.
Feudalism Now!
I don’t get the strategery of, “Obama will feel pain”, by hurting American Citizens. We will use Obama’s empathy against him, to show that he is weak and we are strong? Winning!!??!?
Heritage Foundation is now the Jim DeMinted show, so I doubt they will sacrifice even the little stain. Boehner is the goat for this. Both the tea party and the rino-saurs can agree on disliking Boehner, yet he will remain speaker to remain whipping boy number 1.
MikeJ
@Robert Sneddon:
There are a lot of people out there working very hard to come up with new ways to be disappointed with Obama. Reason isn’t going to work on them.
raven
@jeffreyw: Malfunction at the junction. Pixs?
sparrow
@Robert Sneddon: Not apropos to your comment really, but I cringed a bit at your use of the word “homosexual”… and I realize that it is a technical word, but it is weilded with a lot of venom by some gay-bashers on the right, and I guess I have started to associate it with negative things. Am I the only one? What term is the most preferred by actual gay people?
Botsplainer
Cool! I just got an email from a scam that only targets lawyers. It’s been about a year since I’ve seen one of these.
It’s relatively ingenious. Lawyer gets email from a woman to enforce a “collaborative law” marital settlement agreement. She’s already negotiated the thing, all you need to do is domesticate is and act as the escrow agent on the check. She usually lives in Korea or Japan. Last time I fucked with one of these was great.
I got the documents – they consisted of a collaborative law agreement (which settled nothing, just was an agreement to proceed in a collaborative arrangement), some bullshit divorce decree that doesn’t tell you the name of a court or a jurisdiction or case number, and a photocopy of an untranslated drivers license (which was, on a shallow bit of investigation, the exact template, down to the photo, of the exemplar from the South Korean government website). I demanded an up front payment of $500 just to determine whether I could register such a fine set of paper, the scammer responded by sending me a bank letter (hand addressed, named signature not matching the letter writers name) and a “cashiers check” drawn on a Canadian bank in the amount of $485000, from which I was to take a reasonable fee, and then wire the rest to my “client”. Of course, I called the bank and advised them that someone was flying bogus paper from their branch. Being Canadian, they were very polite and thankful, and advised that they’d put special flags out so that scam instruments could be caught faster.
Here’s where this thing works for them, particularly with older, unsophisticated lawyers or those who turn their practices over to paralegals:
The paperwork is opaque and uses a term for a process that is not well understood or used much because it is cumbersome and incredibly stupid to try for real. The recipient thinks that the monies involved and the process reflect a sophisticated pair of litigants. Then, when they deposit the check, it funds in about two days, and probably takes about another day beyond that to get reversed, giving the target plenty of time to wire the entire contents of his escrow account to the scammers.
Surprisingly, a number of lawyers have been gutted by this thing.
Patrick
@liberal:
If Obama did this, the GOP would sue, maybe even impeach. As a result, the coin option would accomplish nothing. The markets and the world economy would still collapse while it awaits the verdict from the USSC, where this ultimately would go.
BTW – at the time nobody believe there was a valid legal theory against the ACA. The problem is our courts have now been stacked with so many tea partiers that who the hell knows what they are going to rule. It certainly isn’t based on prevailing law.
schrodinger's cat
@jeffreyw: Actually you should blame Homer, he has been reading everything you have written about him and has been waiting his turn. Don’t mess with the kitteh.
Randy P
@NonyNony:
I try not to run around with my hair on fire but I am starting to believe we’re going to see some shooting within the next few years. Not Civil War, but an armed group of Tea Partiers invading something or other in the name of freedom & wolverines.
Patrick
@Anybodybuther2016:
Amen! I remember in the height of the ACA debate, there were people on the left who went on FoxNews to urge people to be against the ACA. Sickening.
virginia
I’m on board with the “Obama doesn’t do gimmicks” thing. Agreed — he doesn’t.
Mike is gonna Needham something a whole lot stronger than caffeine before the dust settles. Love Milbank’s noting that his hands were shaking with fury on the way to pouring himself a cup of Joe.
Aside from everything else, I’m loving seeing these little boys being shown up as the Revolutionary War wannabes they truly are. One of my favorite books growing up was “Johnny Tremaine” — just a great, exciting book for children. I’ve been thinking about it a lot in the last couple of weeks. The folks who orchestrated this attempted putsch seem to suffer from a strain of permanent arrested development. They have the mentality of children. There’s a whole lot more driving this outrage but you see this strain over and over and over again. They seem to be in love with their immature notions of grand adventure. If they could do all this on top of lusty stallions, wind in their hair, they’d love love love it even more. We’re talking romance novel levels of dumb.
danielx
Had to read that article twice…Michael Needham is almost a caricature of a classic Young Republican douche rocket. One can almost see him reading about himself in the Kaplan Daily and thinking “mmm, interview with Dana Milbank, I’ve hit the big time – move over Karl Rove!” Then reading it again and thinking “why do I get the feeling I’m being set up?”
On the other hand, that second thought presupposes on Needham’s part a certain amount of self-awareness, a trait for which Young Republicans are not generally notable. Probably doesn’t matter a whole lot; Rove was a total asshole at a young age too and it doesn’t seem to have hurt his career. Not that this constitutes a brilliant insight or anything, but there’s always a place in Washington and most particularly in the Republican Party for a roaring, flaming, screaming asshole with a talent for self promotion. He’ll probably add it as a bullet point on his resume – “I was personally responsible for the United States of America’s default on public debt and consequent fall into economic disaster.”
Anybodybuther2016
@Ash Can: The president gets threatened so often that if we lit our hair on fire every time it happened, there’d be nothing left to support our fingers on our computer keyboards.
You just made my point for me. Threatening this president has become so routine that hearing about bores you. My point is this doesn’t happen on the right because they know how to circle the wagons. If anybody said a word against Bush the rank and file would be out in full force defending the man and laying waste to anyone who would dare attack him (see the Dixie Chicks) whereas PBO has to not only fend for himself against constant attacks from the rebukes he has to smack down the ball less wonders in his own party that won’t say boo to a repug but think shoud get a medal when they “get in the face” of PBO (see Elenor Norton).
IowaOldLady
I’ve been thinking about the Civil War analogy in terms of Acemogly and Robinson’s “Why Nations Fail.” They say the difference between rich and poor countries is caused partly by whether their government is primarily designed to distribute wealth widely or extract it from the many for the benefit of the few. The compare North and South Korea, for instance, which before the split had similar culture and resources.
They point out that the American South was highly extractive compared to the North. You can’t get much more extractive than slavery.
And extractive systems resist change. The South changed only at gunpoint, first during the Civil War and then during the 1960s when US troops guarded the schools and voting places.
I’m thinking that what we see now is another smasm of resistance.
brettvk
@virginia: I think you’ve hit on a meme here. The GOP is the party of White Guy Clancy Cosplay. Ol’ dead Tom just wrote the white guy eqiuvalent of romance novels.
Baud
@Anybodybuther2016:
With your nym, you shouldn’t be preaching about Democratic unity.
SiubhanDuinne
@beltane:
Muffie Potter Aston? I seriously thought that had to be a spoof name until I googled and found this. Just unbefuckinlievable.
jeffreyw
@raven: Not a total loss, and the pups are showing a lot of interest in the chewier parts.
Rob in CT
@Baron Elmo:
$375/month… wow.
I have employer-provided health insurance. Right now, it covers me + children (it doesn’t distinguish between 1 kid or many), and my wife is separate. It’s a BCBS PPO plan. Lowish copays, lowish deductible ($500pp/$1k family), lowish coinsurance for stuff like ER care (10%), lowish out-of-pocket cap ($3150pp, $6300/family), no cap on what BCBC pays.
The total premium is $857/month (with the company paying 70% of that). If I put my wife on the plan too, it would obviously increase, likely over $1k/month.
I can only guess that $375/month was for a really cut-rate plan. High deductible, high copays/coinsurance, coverage caps… stuff like that.
I happen to think that it *might* have been a tactical error for the PPACA to set its minimum coverage standards as high as it did. That’s one area I wouldn’t mind seeing future reform on, if/when the GOP returns to some semblance of sanity (not holding my breath).
danielx
@Randy P:
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re correct, and it will probably be somebody like that idiot police chief in Pennsylvania and his supporters. There are a lot of people out there who truly believe that Obama is the Antichrist who is hellbent on leading America into a socialist dictatorship* with himself as president-for-life, and those people are the ones who own most of the guns and have the most rabid fantasies about armed resistance to the U.S. guvmint. That’s always worked out so well for everybody who’s tried in the past, you see, most notably for these folks’ spiritual forebears in the Confederate States of America.
*Equally unfortunately, Obama’s record on civil liberties, surveillance of the population, etc etc etc, has done nothing whatever to dispel their fears.
Anybodybuther2016
@MikeJ: exactamondo! They’re pathetically predictable. Why don’t these ratfuckers find an honest 9 to 5 like the rest of us suckers. ;)
virginia
@SiubhanDuinne: Classic. Thanks for the chuckle. Love the pensive look out the window: Muffie Musing the Mysteries of Mythical Money “in her outfit for November 4th!” These are the overlords. Grab that invite to Red Wedding.
danielx
@SiubhanDuinne:
Had to look twice to make sure that wasn’t an article from the Onion. You don’t suppose she went to Smith, do you?
Patricia Kayden
@Hill Dweller: That would be great. We don’t need to repeat all of this nonsense in 6 weeks.
Patricia Kayden
@Anybodybuther2016: I noted it in my comment. It stood out for me as extremely meanspirited and petty. Not sure what Needham could do to threaten the President since he sounds like a tool.
Anybodybuther2016
@Baud: I’m not a democrat or a repugnican. When I voted I used to “mix it up” by voting for mostly democrats a couple of repug woman( I thought because they were female they would be more compassionate..wtfwit) Green Party when available and a libertarian or two (I didn’t know anything about them) and then along came Mr hopey changey. Like most people I assumed that Hilary would be the next potus because that’s what the mysterious all powerful “they” wanted and we the people would have to suck it. I heard about Obama winning Iowa and I was intrigued so I started watching the debates and reading about him in the newspapers and online. I watched a lot of interviews and he came across as a damn decent human being. I knew then that he would be president because I knew that the American people saw what I saw in him and I have voted for democrats since then. But I’m a democrat, I’m a Obamacan.
chopper
@TriassicSands:
it not only snaps us into a balanced budget, we go full-on paygo. if there’s no money in the coffers then we have to balance the checkbook daily. which sucks because those large blocks of treasuries we auction off don’t come due for payment on a daily basis, and it isn’t the same amount every month.
chopper
@TriassicSands:
even if the president comes up with a justification for ordering the treasury to continue printing and selling treasuries past the ceiling that will pass some sort of muster, it’ll be litigated. i’m not sure buyers will be too interested if there’s such a cloud over the validity of that debt and will at the very least demand a huge increase in the yield to compensate. i imagine there’s a good chance that the first sale would fall pretty flat and obama knows that.
Chris
@aimai:
What got me is the part at the end where it’s mentioned that the Romans not only faked Jesus, but left Dan Brownish clues in poetry that that regular people wouldn’t be able to understand, but that the Roman upper classes would.
Maybe things were different in the Roman Empire, but it seems incredibly implausible that people running a black op of this magnitude would then turn around and make it all public just to keep the patricians entertained. I mean, even people like Nixon who were dumb enough to tape all their dirty tricks didn’t try to turn the tapes into Broadway musicals. And are we supposed to believe the patricians read it, understood what it was about, but somehow all of them patriotically knew to keep what it meant to themselves? Did rich people not gossip like Real Housewives in those days?
McJulie
@Patricia Kayden: Obama feels pain because he actually wants better things for the American people and Republicans block his every attempt to get them. I feel that exact same pain myself.
Anybodybuther2016
Dammit. But I’m not a democrat, I’m an Obamacan.
McJulie
@Ramalama: That seems implausible to me, largely because I can’t imagine aristocrats of any kind inventing Jesus as he is portrayed in the Gospels. Our modern-day aristocrats invented a new Jesus which they have successfully (in some circles) projected onto the original character, but that’s a whole different kind of thing…
McJulie
@gene108: I’m probably not the only person who sees the word “Obot” and skims right past anything else you have to say. Just something to keep in mind.
Lawrence
@magurakurin: Torches and pitchforks are so…Victorian. I’m sure there’s a WalMart nearby all the policy institutes and think tanks that need sacking. And inside those WalMarts they have machetes and shotguns and all the other party supplies. And ubiquitous American gasoline. The plutocrat overlords have a giant risk blindness with their endorsement of “petroleum forever and guns for everyone” policies.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Chris:
Sounds like fandom to me.
There was major drama a while ago about a certain fanfic writer who worked in the Harry Potter universe. On the one hand, you have the people who consider her a plagiarist. On the other, you have the people who consider the dialogue, and in some cases entire scenes, that get the first group up in arms to be references, homages, and challenges to the readers to identify them all.
Ripley
@Anybodybuther2016: Well then, glad to know we have coherence and laser-like focus working for our side.
Anybodybuther2016
@Ripley: I said I used to vote that way. Before BHO I was amongst the millions of low info voters who have no interest in politics and aren’t affiliated with any political party. These are the people who don’t describe themselves as liberal or conservative there just people taking care of their families and living their life, you know the silent majority. We voted for PBO because we like HIM not necessarily because he is a democrat. :)
Elie
@Gvg:
Not so. Two toilet paper brands (angel soft and one other, Brawny paper towels, dixie cups and Lycra are some of the brands)
See list below off of the internet: NO ONE SHOULD BUY ANY OF THESE PRODUCTS AND PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD
Investa
Lycra
Cool Max
Tactel
Solar max
Polarguard
Dacron
Thermolite
Comforel
Antron
Stainmaster
Cordura
Georgia-Pacific
Vanity Fair
Angel Soft
Quilted Northern
Sparkle
Brawny
Mardi Gras
Dixie
DensArmor Plus
Plyntanium
Tough Rock
Demak Up
Kittensoft
Lotuss
Moltonel
Tenderly
Nouvelle
Okay
Calhogar
Delica
Inversoft
Tutto
cain
@dmsilev:
The business groups are fucked because a lot of these districts are full on teabaggers. They aren’t going to get the votes. Maybe they can out spend or something. But what drain on the coffers. Either way the candidates still have genuflect towards their base.
Elie
@cain:
My guess is that tea baggers are not distributed evenly in every district and that some may be more vulnerable to them than others.. Those business organizations will probably know.
Ramalama
@aimai: My first response at the bees and Shakespeare was “Jesus” – so you’re right. Were you attending some Marjorie Garber event? I attribute everything regarding Shakespear to her and with bees, well, sounds like performance art. Didn’t the ART host some related-ish events a few years back?
ellie
@SiubhanDuinne: What the hell? That caption!
Ramalama
@schrodinger’s cat: See? This is why my lucrative career hasn’t yet taken off: I’m kind of keen on the name, “Church of Taco Bell”.
@sparrow: I used to care a lot and preferred “homo” (because it’s funny), “lesbo” but was fine with queer or gay too. Homosexual is me talking to an old relative and them trying to come to terms with a newly outed me (from way back). Now I don’t give a merde. As long as I don’t travel to any Arab country the edge is off. And dyke, too many consonants for me, or the long i, or something. Always has irked me and I have religiously (in the Church of Taco Bell fashion) avoided ever saying that word aloud.
boatboy_srq
@WereBear: The one turning point I’ve seen on this so far was the election of Governor Voldemort. His first year in office was a fiasco of Teahadist fever dreams. I recall people I knew complaining about what he was doing in Tallahassee, and when I reminded them he was following his platform their responses were on the model of “Well, he said a lot of things during the campaign – but we never expected he’d do any of them!” I think a lot of the Teahad’s ability to act (or in the case of the House, refrain from acting) is delivered in part by the election of True Believers by the Great Masses Who Think All Politicians Lie: the former didn’t disguise their intent, and the latter loved the rhetoric while expecting that rhetoric to never become policy.
The Other Chuck
@Ramalama:
Highly highly highly dubious. First of all, self-proclaimed prophets were a dime-a-dozen back in those days. One of them was bound to take. But let’s unpack the idea a little more: you’re faced with a province prone to frequent rebellions due to their refusal on religious grounds to adopt your state religion, one that insists on deifying the Emperor, the guy at the top of the food chain politically and socially. So the answer to that is to invent the most populist figure you can imagine who preaches about equality everywhere he goes, a message that spread far beyond one restive province?
Occam’s Razor tells me the Christ figure is as likely to exist as his purported father, but the same logic also suggests that it doesn’t take a grand conspiracy to invent a hippie prophet.
PhilbertDesanex
@dmsilev: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_ZBqpEUbik