Having spent two hours talking to House Republicans, my expert investment advice is: Short everything
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) October 15, 2013
Reader Interactions
250Comments
Comments are closed.
Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?
But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.
We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.
Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.
The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.
Impressively dumb. Congratulations.
Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.
I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.
We still have time to mess this up!
Nothing worth doing is easy.
White supremacy is terrorism.
Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?
How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?
Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.
It’s the corruption, stupid.
Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.
Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.
I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.
The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.
Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.
A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires
Their freedom requires your slavery.
We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.
Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.
MattF
Republican House FAIL:
http://www.nytimes.com/news/fiscal-crisis/2013/10/15/republican-leaders-back-off-new-plan/
OOOPSIE.
LanceThruster
maye
NYT reporting latest House plan collapses.
maye
Is Boehner putting vodka in his coffee these days? Is Cantor in charge? And has he lost control too?
beth
@MattF: Oh for fuck’s sake they’ve been at this shutdown for two weeks and they still don’t have a clue what they want or how to get it. How anyone ever votes for a Republican again is a mystery to me. Is there some way Wall Street can drop the market like a bomb, just a few hundred points, not enough to drive people into bankruptcy but just enough to let Congress know they’re sick of them fucking around? I can’t think of anything else to do.
c u n d gulag
Rather than ‘shorting everything,’ can’t we hack the Republicans off at the knees, and then sit around enjoying watching them bleed to death?
I’m kidding!
I am kidding, aren’t I?
Yeah…
Uhm…
Cris (without an H)
@LanceThruster: They’ll get their Braveheart moment yet. I’m pulling for defenestration.
The Dangerman
Speaking of everything short, can we get these jerks in a circle and bring this thing to it’s climax finally?
fuddmain
Pitchforks and torches are about the only things left.
NickM
I can’t believe it but the market is barely down at all today — and even seems to have rallied a little in the last hour or so. WTF?
Roger Moore
@maye:
What a dreadful idea. I think he’s just inserted “Irish” in front of coffee on his personal menu.
Redshirt
I just shifted all my money to rocks. Actual rocks – sure to have value in the new economy.
TAPX486
@Cris (without an H): I’d vote for castration!
MattF
@Redshirt: I don’t disagree. But you’re going to need a lot of rocks.
PeakVT
We’re all doomed! Who’s fly this thing?
Also, too, it’s not going to be doom if the US formally defaults. It’s just going to make a really big mess, and lots of average people will be hurt. All for teabagger fee-fees.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Chuck Todd explaining that Democrats are being unreasonable in their response to the House proposal. “heated rhetoric!”
says Boehner just wants a symbolic vote on stuff he’ll agree to strip out later (the Vitter amendment).
Redshirt
@MattF: I’ve got heaping piles of rocks! I’m rich, bitchez!
Cris (without an H)
GOLD!
Comrade Mary
I just shifted my paltry Canuck investments to money market. My investments guy wasn’t very happy with me, and fuck it, I might take a loss if they do pull this together and pass a deal before Thursday, but fuck it twice and burn it to the ground, I can’t take this insanity.
And I know that the turd-plan seems lost, but they can always come up with another. They’re like the goose that laid golden eggs, except turds.
PeakVT
@Redshirt: I’m long obsidian and flint. Thinking about some options on chert, too.
Roger Moore
@Cris (without an H):
Trading down on the day, and further down compared to the beginning of the month. Don’t ask why.
SatanicPanic
@MattF: Well that was fast, even for them
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
@Redshirt:
Blue plastic tarps, leaf bags, cheap booze, throwaway lighters, bleach. You, too, can be a feudal lord!
Redshirt
@PeakVT: Keep an eye on the catgut market. Will be very useful in fashioning primitive bows for squirrel hunting.
Elizabelle
@Redshirt:
I am ready to throw some rocks.
We’re getting a national lesson in not electing a Congress full of the faith-based. (Faith in ideology, and a “Christian” religion Jesus would not recognize.)
They are immune to evidence-based reasoning.
Other countries cannot afford to do what the GOP is attempting to put us through.
Mike E
Ashleigh Banfield pointing out the House “offer” violates the Hastert Rule by not having enough R votes to even be legitimate.
Cassidy
As much as I hate it, I find myself shopping for rifles again. I just don’t see how this whole thing with conservatives end that doesn’t involve them getting aggressive. These fuckers aren’t going away because we hope they do.
burnspbesq
If your outrage meter isn’t pinned as a result of the House Republicans’ antics, this oughta do the trick.
http://m.kansascity.com/kcstar/db_41535/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=rbbyEDTJ&full=true#display
Spaghetti Lee
From the Times:
But House Republicans appear intent to extract at least one concession, depriving members of Congress, the president, vice president and White House political appointees of subsidies when they purchase health insurance under the health care law’s new exchanges.
Aside from the “no negotiating with terrorists” principle (which I do think is important in itself) why would this be so bad? Just congresspeople and high ranking executive branch people? They’re all rich and connected anyway. Or does it apply to staffers too?
Frankensteinbeck
Is the senate deal anything more than a rumor at this point? I trust rumors out of the capitol not at all these days, so I’d really like to know.
Roger Moore
@burnspbesq:
I think the average sane person’s problem is outrage fatigue, not failure to find things to be outraged about.
pseudonymous in nc
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Not even fucking original.
Spaghetti Lee
@Mike E:
Meaning that there’s a faction of the GOP that wants to back off and work with Dems, or a faction that thinks this bill isn’t crazy enough? Either way, eff the Hastert Rule. It’s not a “rule”, it’s a way Republicans cover their own asses.
TAPX486
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Not to put to fine a point on it but we are already at ‘later’.
According to one report it is the usual 50 or so suspects that continue to want to blow up the world. Now I didn’t become a rocket scientist because I couldn’t do the math, but even my math says 200 dems and 170 or so goppers is well over the 217 votes need to pass a clean cr/debit limit bill. A lot has been said about the non-crazy goppers, well its time to stand up and be counted. If you lose your house seat well that is the price that has to be paid for ‘country first’. They have spent the last two weeks crying at the WWII memorial about how the Greatest generation is being dishonored. Well they are the ones doing the dishonoring.
MattF
@Frankensteinbeck: The Senate deal seems to be real. The House is on the other side of the Event Horizon, so who knows?
Elie
This is revolution by other means….
maye
@Spaghetti Lee: Why would they even get subsidies? To qualify for a subsidy, you need an income well below $100K.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@NickM:
Wall St decoupled from the concerns of the Little People at least two decades ago.
Those Who Matter have no doubt been profiting hand over fist with their computer-generated puts.
Mike E
@Cassidy: Not to get all Ari Fleischer on you here (“Be careful what you say”) and I agree the potential for violence grows ever higher considering the pool of gun-toting morans out there…but, you may want tack on “for my self defense” to such cyber sentiments.
Adding, IANAL. Too.
Frankensteinbeck
@TAPX486:
It’s all on Boehner, and it’s always been all on Boehner.
@MattF:
How ‘seems to be real’? Has it passed? Is it a formal bill going through the process now? Have McConnell and Reid publicly agreed to it? Was it reported by an actually reliable source? I’m trying to figure out how skeptical I should be.
schrodinger's cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I have better candidate for Chuckie’s job.
Cermet
@TAPX486: Exactly what do these no ball’s asswipe thugs have to cut off?!
kindness
Call me a conspiracy theorist but I’ve been increasingly believing that the whole point of this is to push the nation into default in hopes that Obama does something extraordinary to save us from default at which point the House will try to impeach Obama. The Senate will never convict him but the whole sideshow will stop government for months. It’s a TeaHaddist twofer; it slanders a(nother) sitting Democratic President with impeachment and stops the government from functioning.
And it fits with Tailgunner Ted’s tactics. It is destined to fail yet stirs up the base to the point of civil war. Success won’t be actual impeachment but all the other ‘benefits’.
@fuddmain:
Guillotines? You forgot guillotines.
David in NY
I just called Chris Gibson’s (R-NY19) DC office ((202) 225-5614). It’s a purple district, he’s got a challenger with money, and it seemed quiet at the office. They were flummoxed by my question whether he would back the Senate Bill. If anybody else lives in that district, please call. They need to hear from us.
Cassidy
@Mike E: I’m hoping that’s a given. I use to enjoy looking at guns. Now it makes me depressed. Between gun nuts turning my hobby into a fetishist passion play, kids being massacred, and feeling like I need one to keep my family safe from them, I just wish the whole damn lot could be melted down to scrap.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I’ve come to the conclusion that House conservatives are all prepper-sympathizers who actually want to bring about the dystopian anachy the preppers’ paranoid delusions have convinced them to prepare for. It’s the simplest explanation.
Cermet
@Spaghetti Lee: Both, I’d bet.
EconWatcher
I still don’t think Boehner will actually allow a default, and I still don’t see how this ends without an intraparty civil war that will last up through the midterms.
This effort to cobble together some kind of cosmetic face-saver in the House was a desperation move, doomed to failure. The nutbags aren’t interested in cosmetics, and while they’re amazingly stupid, they’re not quite stupid enough to mistake a token for something real.
So Boehner will have to dump the Hastert rule, that will lead to an attempt to oust him, and where we go from there is anybody’s guess. But I don’t see how it can be settled within the GOP by November 2014.
TAPX486
@maye: Due to a quirk in the law, inserted by the gopper Grassley of Iowa, government employees would be removed from their existing employer based (i.e. government) plan and have to enroll in the exchanges. Given their salaries many would not qualify for a subsidy. More importantly and going the heart of the matter is they would lose the 70-80% empower contribution to the plan. So instead of, say, paying 2000k a year in payroll deductions for a 10k plan (the employer piece being 8k), they would have to pay the entire 10k out of pocket.
The thugs are trying to use this as a gimmick to leverage popular discontent with special government privilege and deadbeat government workers. It is as phony an issue as the cr/debt crisis
GxB
@NickM: When you’re a MotU, it’s pretty hard to imagine that someone will ultimately disobey your will. These assholes may just be crazy enough to do it. It’s made for some interesting dynamics anyway.
gbear
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Come to think of it, rocks may have a lot of value soon. I’d like to have a bucket full of them right now…
fuckwit
@beth: THEY ALREADY KNOW WHAT THEY WANT AND THEY ALREADY GOT IT!!!
My god, how many fucking times do I have to say this? I’ll try screaming it one more time into the goddamned void, in the hopes someone listens and understands:
THE SHUTDOWN AND DEFAULT ARE NOT NEGOTIATING TACTICS! THEY ARE THE STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE!!!
Stop, for just one minute, and think about this. These guys have ALREADY WON what they wanted to win! They WANT the government shut down. They WANT a default on debt. They GOT the shutdown, and they’re not going to give it up for anything less than a permanent shutdown and permanent default.
Now their mission is to hold on to that win as long as possible, for a year, two years, four years, indefinitely!!
Their plan is:
1) Shut down the goverment
2) Shut down the Treasury
3) Drown it all in a bathtub.
4) WIN!!!
I wish I could scream this, put it on a billboard, and shake all the Dems and every fucking commenter here and everywhere by the shoulders and scream it in their face until they fucking understand.
You are not dealing with rational negotiators. You are “dealing” with suicide bombers, an apocalyptic cult. They have no interest in negotiating. They already have what they want. Their only goal now is to hold on to it forever, or better, to set it in stone.
Jockey Full of Malbec
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
They didn’t get their Apocalypse in Y2K, and the post-9/11 chaos turned out to be a bust (from their point of view) as well.
No wonder they’re so antsy…
MomSense
Is there a name for what they are doing? Creating a constitutional crisis? Sedition? Treason? Coup? Seriously, wtf is this?
Bruce K
@MattF: Event horizon is right…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@maye: apparently the Tea Baggers blew up Boner’s latest ransom note because it doesn’t include staff in the Vitter Rule. i.e. it doesn’t hit lower level staffers hard enough
Cermet
@kindness: If memories serves, the house needs two thirds as well to impeach; no fucking way that happens (even for all the thugs in the senate.)
Mike E
@Spaghetti Lee: Consider the source and, yes, I didn’t reach for my CNN Brick before tuning into her show, but it’s fun to throw their “rules” back at them. Angus “Young” King just cited it, while scoffing at the House’s mindless vandalism.
jenn
@burnspbesq: Yeah, that was one of the worst and most depressing things I’ve read in a good while.
MattF
@Frankensteinbeck: All fair questions. It’s quite possible that the news reports are wishful thinking from reporters trying to construct a ‘positive’ narrative. My own view is that nothing will happen unless and until Boehner caves.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MomSense: nullification, of the 2012 election
Bruce K
@Cermet: No, the House can vote articles of impeachment by a simple majority; we wouldn’t have had the impeachment of Clinton otherwise. It’s the Senate that needs two-thirds to convict.
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
@Jockey Full of Malbec:
If the purchasing power of the dollar declined to one cent Those Who Matter still have enough dollars to ride that out in comfort. All they’d do is buy up every dollar denominated asset they could.
dpm (dread pirate mistermix)
@Cermet: It’s a simple majority.
Roger Moore
@kindness:
I think that idea is needlessly baroque, and that it’s much more easily explained as what it appears to be: hostage taking in attempt to extract concessions. This is a more plausible explanation because:
A) Budgetary hostage taking has happened before and,
B) They could impeach Obama today if they felt like it and make up some reason that would be more coherent than his failure to follow their inconsistent directives
West of the Cascades
@maye: These aren’t the subsidies that low-income earners can get through the exchanges, rather they’re employer (U.S. Government) contributions to the cost of health care — basically the House proposal would be taking that piece out of the benefits package for members of Congress, the Cabinet, and President (an early report I read said that congressional staff would still get the employer contribution). Purely symbolic, and not entirely clear “symbolic of what,” other than “Republicans are assholes.”
Comrade Dread
@NickM: Most people still think that the GOP is sane and that there will be a deal made at the last minute.
Sometime later, after the House has walked off the cliff, the market will be reminded of the law of gravity and will drop into the ravine with a “Yikes!”
Cermet
@Bruce K: Ok; didn’t know that. Still, I’d find it hard to believe a few house members would do that in heavy purple districts – they’d be toast, big time. So, I’d think it would fail in the house.
TAPX486
Seems like straight to hell is as good a direction as any.
gbear
I think Boehner would rather gavel the house closed and go golfing than try to solve this in a way that costs him his leadership perks.
Roger Moore
@Cermet:
Nope. It’s a simple majority in the House to impeach but a 2/3 majority in the Senate to convict. That’s how the Clinton impeachment was able to get through.
Frankensteinbeck
@fuckwit:
Republicans are not one homogenous group. Only about 50 Reps want the default and consider it a victory itself. They are real, and they do want the default, not to pressure Obama but because they’re suicide bombers like you said. The rest are merely scared because their primary voters agree with these lunatics. They’re sure that if they stick their neck out it will be chopped off, but if Boehner brought a clean CR to the floor it’s almost certain they’d vote for it. It is, as it has been, all on Boehner.
@Bruce K:
Which still is in Not Going To Happen territory.
El Cid
YEEEEEE-DAWGGGY!
I’m bustin’ out all mah damn Confederate dollars! Silver certificates!
Defund the last century and a half!
Repeal the Children’s Television Workshop!
MomSense
@Higgs Boson’s Mate (Crystal Set):
don’t forget the duct tape!
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
@MomSense:
And cable ties!
MomSense
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yes!
Roger Moore
@MomSense:
Kinky!
sparrow
@burnspbesq: I want those fuckers tattooed with “I rape women” all over their fucking faces. And I include the people who harassed the victim and the police that didn’t prosecute in that.
celticdragonchick
@beth:
Because for too many people, a vote for a Republican is a vote against the traitor Muslim terrorist ni*clang!* in the White House…and that will not change.
Botsplainer
@Comrade Dread:
After which, they’ll hold the (42nd? 43rd?) symbolic vote to repeal Obamacare.
Perhaps some of the glitchy features would not have been there had there been some level of coordination and cooperation.
SFAW
@EconWatcher:
And your thought is based on what evidence, exactly? Because little, if anything, that Boehner has DONE (not merely SAID) so far would support your thesis.
@MomSense:
I think sedition fits best, but, as the saying goes “I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.”
fuckwit
@Frankensteinbeck: Right, but my point is, they cannot be negotiated with. Not by Obama, not by Boehner, not by anybody. Indeed, there are plenty of non-insane Rethugs including those in leadership positions trying to broker a deal, but they cannot deliver the actual 50 votes of the terrorist contingent. And good point, they themselves are vulnerable to primary challengers too. So they can’t promise anything, therefore they have no authority to actually do deals with anyone. This was obvious in 2011, and Obama actually came out to give a quick presser to say it outright: Boehner is not in control of his caucus, he’s not a reliable negotiator, he can’t deliver what he promises, because his caucus is not his to speak for.
pseudonymous in nc
I think this is Bonerdammerung. He’s going to end up with the Senate version, with Dem votes, and the teabaggers will defenestrate him.
bemused
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Seriously?
Roger Moore
@sparrow:
The police don’t prosecute. From the sounds of it, they did an excellent job; they reacted quickly and got all the evidence needed for a conviction. It’s the local prosecutor who decided not to follow up on their good work who deserves the blame.
kindness
@Cermet: Their success won’t be measured by the outcome, as that isn’t in doubt, so much as by the wasted time spent spinning wheels, bloviating on the Sunday shows and the increased blood pressure of the Teahaddists. And if it sends a few Fox folk over the edge to actual violence, well that is even better as far as they are concerned.
sparrow
@Roger Moore: I stand corrected, thanks.
patroclus
The Republicans are insane. They would literally default on the debt in order to screw their staffers on their health insurance.
jl
@fuckwit: I guess as we descend into chaos, if this goes on for months, the House GOP maniacs will stand on the Capitol steps singing Amazing Grace and sagely telling passersby that they were right about the catastrophe the Democrats, especially the blah president, brought down on us all.
If the news reports about what is going on in the House are accurate, and Bohener contntues to boner.
jheartney
I’m a bit surprised they haven’t impeached already. I expected after Mitt lost they’d do it ASAP, but I guess their genius strategists decided shutdown and default would be better goals. If they are stymied on those impeachment will likely follow shortly after.
celticdragonchick
@burnspbesq:
My God.
I simply have no words.
Anonymous needs to put these fuckers on the front page of the world…along with addresses and phone numbers.
shortstop
@Frankensteinbeck: As usual, I’m more disgusted with the self-protecting cowards who enable the maliciously crazy people than I am with the maliciously crazy people (also see Church, Roman Catholic, mass protection of pedophiles). The fact that House Republicans who actually understand the consequences of a default aren’t storming the leadership to get this done is the largest evil in this story.
Frankensteinbeck
@fuckwit:
The 50 can’t be negotiated with. They can be outvoted. The non-insane are subject to pressure, and they’re wondering if their investments, their campaign contributions, and their chances of beating a D challenger are all screwed by this default. But they really don’t want to obviously buck their entire party by helping force a vote past Boehner, so… well, I have no idea what Boehner’s breaking point is. He’s broken on every single previous confrontation and allowed votes the Teabaggers hated. He’s pushing much harder now. My best guess is that he just hates Reid and Nancy and McConnell personally. They’ve treated him like a useless jackass, because he’s a useless jackass.
Paul in KY
@El Cid: Hell, just mint/draw your own!! Whatever denomination you want! I think Ted Cruz should be on the 50 whackado note.
Cris (without an H)
@Cassidy: I don’t care for guns myself. I’m hoping I can defend myself against the Teabag hordes with a 40# recurve.
celticdragonchick
@pseudonymous in nc:
Maybe they will do a better job of it then this case in 1618 where the regents landed in a pile of dung.
Paul in KY
@pseudonymous in nc: I wonder if Wagner could have done anything with that…
jenn
@Frankensteinbeck: Yeah, I’m not sure where my R Rep really stands, but I *think* he’s on the saner side of the Republican continuum (not saying he’s ACTUALLY sane). Just talked again to a very nice staffer, who thanked me for calling in with my polite-but-angry opinion. Not that that’s not what the phone answerers are supposed to do, just that I’ve heard plenty of tales otherwise!
Shakezula
Gloom and doom.
But for whom?
Botsplainer
@Roger Moore:
I’m guessing that it’ll be about 48 hours for all the emails to get displayed.
Paul in KY
@patroclus: Someone in another thread said it was more to screw the Democratic staffers. The Repubs have ‘wingnut welfare’.
Cassidy
@Cris (without an H): I know it sounds hyperbolic, but I keep going back to the Home Guard.
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
@Frankensteinbeck:
Boehner’s the kind of guy who gives being a self-serving, drunken coward a bad name.
Paul in KY
@Cris (without an H): You don’t want to bring a 40# recurve to a gun fight.
pluege
but as we know, its not republicans that matter, so Weigel is wasting our time. It is republican – no “s” that matters, as in boehner and boehner alone. These are the facts:
1) the republican wingnut tea partiers will not vote for anything that even somewhat rational non-tea party republicans are willing to vote for.
2) boehner has always had a majority in the House to not shut down the government and not default. Because of the teabagger goons he’s only not had a majority of republicans.
So, as it has ALWAYS been, its up to boehner, and boehner alone to allow the majority in the House to reopen the government and avoid default. So very, very sad for this country.
obama and democratic concessions and Reid-McConnell deals mean nothing except to the point they give boehner what he thinks is sufficient face saving for him and him alone so he can stop being a supplicant prick to the insane teabagger goons, and allow the government to function as intended – majority rule.
Ruckus
@fuckwit:
You aren’t the first or the only one to say this.
The original tpartiers were only about defunding/ending the government. That was their only agenda. These idiots may have sub agendas but that is their main one, that government is bad/wrong/the devil/end of the world. No amount of proof will change that.
Now the kicker. Just because their end game is total annihilation of government, to be replaced by who the hell knows, doesn’t change anything in marginalizing them.
Cassidy
@Roger Moore: The police chief/ sheriff also said it was the victim and her family’s fault for messing up the case by talking about it. Supposedly, they were just supposed to shut up and get over it.
LanceThruster
@Cris (without an H):
Herbie pushed Tony from the Boys’ Club roof
Tony thought that his rage was just some goof
But Herbie sure gave Tony some bitchen proof
“Hey,” Herbie said, “Tony, can you fly?”
But Tony couldn’t fly . . . Tony died
xD
celticdragonchick
@Cassidy:
I hear ya.
we were close to having something akin to martial law when the markets melted down in 2208. I understand that Paulson was telling the congress that the banks would fail, food and fuel delivery would stop and that the national Guard would have to keep order as the supermarket shelves were emptied and money stopped coming out of the atm’s,
I wonder what saves us if it finally does happen this time?
We keep bring these calamities upon ourselves with our own policies, and it stands to reason that sooner or later, we will finally get what we have been working towards…which is social anarchy.
Hell, even the Athenians couldn’t hold off the Spartans forever after they pissed away their advantage in Sicily…and they had a hell of a winning streak for awhile. But they had to win every battle and the Spartans only had to win one by the end of the war.
I think we are now in the same boat.
EconWatcher
It is in [email protected]SFAW:
Boehner is a sane person, and the conduct of sane people can usually be predicted by looking at their incentives. It is in Boehner’s interest to try everything he can to appease the nutbags, right up to the wire, so that he can say he did all he could and try to save his speakership.
It is not in his interest to allow an actual default, because it will calamitous, it will be on his watch, and he will be disgraced with the money folks who could give him a sweet sinecure when this is all over.
I’ve never known him to do anything that would seriously hurt the moneyed class, and I don’t think he’ll start now.
Anna in PDX
@sparrow: From what I read about the case seems like the police did everything totally fine and for once it was not their misconduct but that of the prosecutors.
celticdragonchick
@Paul in KY:
No you don’t.
I am actually looking at buying some .30-30 ammo for the first time in 20 years.
We may need to hunt to meat on the damned table if nothing else.
El Cid
@Paul in KY: Good idea! We need to start investing in Sarah Palin Bonds, but be careful, as they tend to quit halfway through paying off.
nemesis
The Cruz Crew wants a default. The default will be blamed on Obama, triggering impeachement hearings. baggers control gummit.
The Cruz Crew wants Obama to capitulate in favor of a short-term debt ceiling increase. The backing-down by the POTUS signals to the baggers they are in charge of gummit and leads them to bring the country to the brink, or over it, yet again in a few months time.
My bet is this is what Cruz said to his minions at the taco bar last night. Just hang tough and we get what we want.
Seems kinda like a slo-motion coup.
celticdragonchick
Looks like the rape case has exploded on the national scene. Anonymous is after the scum and the DA office is under fire from around the country.
scav
@burnspbesq: Small town values in fine display there. Heartland ‘Merka! Rape the foreign women and close ranks around “the Team”.
Here’s more on corporate ‘Merka, not just for Wally’s world any more. Most fast-food workers need public assistance: study
Roger Moore
@fuckwit:
And the underlying problem is that Boehner is so afraid for his speakership that he’s devised a new rule far more restrictive than the Hastert Rule. The Hastert Rule said they could only go to the floor with something that could win a majority of the Republican caucus, i.e. 50%+1 of the Republicans. The Boehner Rule seems to say that it must be able to win a majority within the House without depending on any minority votes, i.e. it must be able to get the approval of 218 House Republicans. That means in practice that any coherent group of more than about a dozen Republican House members has veto power. Now he’s faced with a situation where the Tea Party caucus is making demands that are unacceptable to enough other Republicans that he can’t satisfy his rule, and the legislation is important enough that he can’t just punt. The most sensible solution is to go back to the Hastert Rule, find something that will satisfy a majority of Republicans and enough Democrats to pass, and go with that, but he’s not going to do that until he’s run out of time to try alternatives.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think it would be okay if people started screaming about this now, maybe force Boner to say he won’t do it
fuckwit
@Cassidy: There’s something there. I’d put my money on political connections and strings being pulled, plus a general “us-vs-them” tribal mindset. And it’s pretty clear that Coleman pissed off the prosecutor’s office, hell, she even managed to piss off the Sheriff who was on her side, and probably pissed off others in the community as well. But what would you do if it were your kid? I can’t think of any evidence that might have surfaced which could have been exculpatory, though IANAL. Still, the law is the law, this was clearly a crime, and it needed to be prosecuted. If the boys got acquitted in a jury trial, then so be it, but to just not bother to prosecute it seems deeply suspicous.
I find vigilante justice dangerous, but this is one of those cases where the system has failed, and, yeah, I can see Anonymous springing into action with enthusiasm.
Those poor girls and that poor family. What a nightmare.
Also, WHY DOES THIS KIND OF SHIT ALWAYS SEEM TO HAPPEN AROUND HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS IN THE MIDWEST???! What kind of sociopathy is going on over there, with boys running around thinking that just because they win games they are entitled to stick their dick into anyone they want to? What is that?
Botsplainer
@celticdragonchick:
I got a shload of clipped .30-06 for the Garand (along with some old timey blacktips), but I need to pick up some .30 cal for the carbine so I can go hunt local teatard funders for sustenance in the long coming winter.
Anybody keep any recipes that I could use to prepare mortgage brokers, hospital company executives or meritorious inheritors with, or should I just stick to converting pork recipes?
SatanicPanic
@Roger Moore: But how does he lose his speakership? At this point I don’t think the teaturds could rally the votes for that. Their colleagues have just been given a lesson in what happens when you follow their lead and I don’t see how many members would be willing to go for that.
Ksmiami
@celticdragonchick: get a hunting dog… More valuable than a gun
sparrow
@Botsplainer: I’m personally just going to go to costco and stock up on dried beans, oats, and rice. That’ll feed you for a while if you have clean water… kind of kidding…
pseudonymous in nc
@SatanicPanic:
It’d be more along the lines of the suicide caucus saying “we will fuck over everything you do until you quit”, not a direct floor challenge.
Shakezula
In the event of a total civilization meltdown, liberals are supposed to be murdered in various amusing ways for the delectation of the Brave, Strong, Intelligent, Stoic Teahaddist Overlords who will then go on to live in a utopia of Free Market Hand Jobs forever.
We’re not supposed to have the ability to return fire.
@Botsplainer:
Remember, you are what you eat. The Capitalist Longpig diet will turn you and your family into massive piles of blazing assholes in less than a week. Not to mention the likelihood of contracting a prion disease.
g
@Spaghetti Lee: Depriving people of a benefit they would never have a reason to use. Bravo! What masterful negotiation skills.
SatanicPanic
@pseudonymous in nc: They could do in the Senate, but I don’t know how effective that would be in the House. He could get bills passed without them, and besides these budget bills the House pretty much doesn’t do anything at this point anyway.
celticdragonchick
@Ksmiami:
Cannot own a dog here and I already have the guns.
Also, the dog usually does not kill the game. It merely flushes it or corners it. You still have to kill whatever you were hunting, whether by bow or whatever. (I make no claim to be anything like Katniss Everdeen, so I do not use a bow…)
fuckwit
@pseudonymous in nc: It’s simpler than that. The suicide caucus just wants to keep the shutdown going indefinitely, and never allow another debt ceiling increase again.
It’s VERY simple, but it means there is no negotiating with them. They are not doing this in order to gain concessions. These ARE their concessions. They’ve already won. All they need to do is run the clock out and they win BIG.
You are not dealing with rational negotiators. You are dealing with a treasonous suicide cult that wants to drown the United States of America in a bathtub.
Frankensteinbeck
@fuckwit:
Small town values. Seriously. The upside is that when things are going fine, everyone is really, really friendly. The downside is that if the town doesn’t want a scandal – and it almost never wants a scandal – crimes get swept under the rug. A local sports team they’re proud of can get away with rape and even murder. Rape, domestic abuse, and extreme bullying (rape, for example) among minors in particular are non-topics, things that will be shielded from public and legal view. If you make a fuss, it’s your fault.
The Pale Scot
After Bones I ended up watching Sleepy Hollow, it seemed sorta interesting so I went online to watch the first episode and get the back story.
Appalling, utterly appalling. It seems George Washington and I’m sure the rest of FFs were hip deep in the book of Revelations fighting the horseman of the apocalypse. Connecting these Deists and men of the Enlightenment to the babbling of people who spent their days navel gazing repeatedly reading one book over and over like students at a Afghan Madrasa (really, Miller and Darby needed real jobs) is libel.
Seanly
My wife is taking a flight on Thursday & returning on Monday. She’s worried that the air traffic controllers who are not being paid will crash her flight to make a point. I told her that the ATC’s are professions and know they’ll get paid at some point (assuming we return to a functioning federal government). I’m more worried about the insane Republicans. I hope that Boenher and Cantor can grow enough of a pair to bring whatever Senate plan to a vote for the House.
Botsplainer
@Roger Moore:
Jesus! He pulls that one, and he and Cantor need to be dragged in irons to Gitmo.
celticdragonchick
@Botsplainer:
Seconded…
SFAW
@EconWatcher:
I don’t disagree that he’s sane. It’s not the sanity clause that worries me, it’s whether he will nut up and punt on Hastert. He seems to believe that he will lose his Speakership if he passes a CR with Dem votes, and that appears to be driving a lot of his actions.
There are plenty of sane people in this world who do non-rational things, sometimes out of fear, sometimes because they don’t want to fight the inevitable battle (which may not seem inevitable to them), sometimes because they’re misreading a situation, and I imagine there are plenty of other reasons.
Neville Chamberlain was sane. So was George McClellan. So was Bobby Lee, both before and after Pickett’s Charge. In other words, sanity is not a guarantee that the person (nominally) in power will make the smart decision.
ETA: And, reading Roger Moore’s comment at 117, I realize it’s not Hastert, it IS the Boehner Rule. Mea maxima culpa.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Redshirt: I’m putting mine in booze – I think that’ll be the new exchange currency.
rea
@maye: “Why would they even get subsidies? To qualify for a subsidy, you need an income well below $100K”
Not that kind of subsidy. They started off with employer provided health insurance. Then, in a political gesture, they were told to purchase insurance on the exchange–but they’d get the equivalent of the cost of the old employer-provded policy to support their purchase of insurance. Now, the move is to give them nothing, in effect, a significant pay cut. Nobody else in the country loses their employer-provided health insurance as a result of the ACA.
ericblair
@EconWatcher:
I tend to agree with this; however, we’re well into the stage of chicken where any sort of fuckup or hitch will delay things enough to cause us to go into default. Drunky McPumpkin may not want to do it on his watch, but his sterling record of competence probably means he’ll do it by accident.
And how fucking dumb is it to fuck over your own staffers over their health insurance, anyways? You know, the people who know where the money comes from and goes to, and who you’ve been schtupping over at the Courtyard Marriott on Wednesday evenings? You Do Not Fuck With the Admin Staff. Unbelievable.
SFAW
@Shakezula:
Me, I’m a-hopin’ that Dean Chambers picks me as his next food source.
And I ain’t very tough, that’s for damn sure.
celticdragonchick
@EconWatcher:
Go back and read the run-up to WW I and see what happens when sane people make bad decisions even when they think they are acting in their best interest at the moment. Start with the “Blank Check”…
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Won’t somone please do all of us a favor and beat the living shit out of Chuckles the Toddler?
Please?
pseudonymous in nc
@ericblair:
Perhaps they’re hoping that GOP staffers will either get the money from their rich parents, or receive brown envelopes of cash from wingnut welfare orgs to cover the difference.
burnspbesq
@Botsplainer:
Nobody else should ever be sent to Gitmo, for any reason.
Now if you want to propose snatching Boehner, Cantor, and Cruz, putting them on a G5, and dumping them on the runway in Peshawar with a case of MREs and a case of bottled water, I could get behind that.
NonyNony
@rea:
So wait a minute. The idiot Tea Partiers want to give up their OWN insurance in a fit of pique?
I think I can see why Boehner can’t get enough Republicans to sign on for this. Only a few dozen have to be so stupid that they want to cut their own dicks off just to spite Obama.
Joel
I know Weigel is kidding here, but taking a short position in a volatile market is a good way to ensure massive losses for yourself.
Kay
They can’t even get their own country-destroying plan out, now?
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
G5, my ass. Let them ride in the back of a C141 without a comfort pallet.
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
Do you care whether the aircraft has landed when that action is accomplished? (I’m reminded of “The Good Shepherd.”)
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
If someone beat the living shit out of him, what will be left? A stain on the floor?
Jennifer
Ummm…just curious, but why doesn’t the mother in the Missouri rape case bring this to the attention of the FBI? The story says that someone videoed the assaults with an iPhone. These girls were 14 and 13 – that means, it’s child pornography, that puts it under FBI purview. It also means that anyone who has passed that video on to anyone else is guilty of distributing child pornography.
And the FBI won’t really give a shit about who’s who in that podunk small town.
Roger Moore
@SatanicPanic:
I think the worry is that the teabaggers will challenge him and the Democrats will vote for Pelosi, leaving him without enough votes to stay Speaker. A competent politician would threaten the Democrats with some crazy Teabagger Speaker and the Teabaggers with moderate Republicans preferring Pelosi to their candidate, but I don’t think Boehner lacks confidence to try that kind of thing. He’s more of a go along to get along kind of guy who would prefer to appease the Teabaggers.
Sir Nose'D
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Agree 100%.
Ruckus
@burnspbesq:
Wouldn’t it be more fitting to push them and the supplies out the back of a C130 at about 500 ft and 200 mph?
ETA I see I’m not alone in the delivery concept.
ksmiami
@celticdragonchick: yeah, but dogs are brilliant scavengers when times are lean… they are more opportunistic and their sense of smell is particularly helpful when fighting off zombie GOP cannibals.. If there is any doubt – I HATE THESE [email protected]#@R$
gbear
Any chance that Obama could just attach a signing statement to whatever shit bill he winds up with, saying that he won’t enforce the provisions that affect the ACA? Bush would…
rikyrah
Nancy Pelosi @NancyPelosi1h
Speaker doesn’t have votes to pass R plan. He does have the votes to pass the Senate CR and reopen govt. Choice should be clear. #EndThisNow
Paul in KY
@celticdragonchick: Best wishes for some nice venision, or if times get real tough, dog.
Roger Moore
@SFAW:
The problem isn’t the Hastert rule, it’s that he’s applying something much more restrictive. The Hastert rule says he needs a majority of the Republican caucus to do anything, and he’s applying a rule that says he needs to get a majority of the House consisting of Republicans to do anything. If he were just following the Hastert rule, he would probably have put a clean CR/DC bill on the floor already, but his much more restrictive version doesn’t let him do anything that can’t pass the Teabagger caucus.
Paul in KY
@El Cid: That joke wrote itself! God what a POS she is. I could not stand to be in the same room with her.
Gravenstone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Call the House into emergency session, under threat of Federal arrest. If we decided to reroute their flights from DC to Gitmo, I wouldn’t complain.
Roger Moore
@rea:
Or at least not as a direct, legislated requirement that they lose it. Plenty of people are losing their coverage because of ACA, or at least their employers are blaming the loss of coverage on ACA.
Ruckus
@Paul in KY:
Fortunately back in 2008 there were enough people who couldn’t stand to be in the same country with her.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: Half + 1 of 218 is 110. So the NO black would have to be at least 109.
Please correct me if my math is off here.
Paul in KY
@Paul in KY: That’s the ‘NO block’ up above. Although I’m sure a bunch of the slimey fucks are NO black as well.
Paul in KY
@fuckwit: The girl really wanted to get with him (not in the way it turned out). Why was she so smitten with him? What is it about the muscular, bad boy athletes that get them so fired up?
Paul in KY
@Botsplainer: In the South Sea Isles, they called people meat ‘long pig’. I think converting the pork recipes would do fine.
Paul in KY
@Shakezula: Hadn’t thought of prion disease. Good point. How about you feed their carcasses to your pigs & then eat them?
Wouldn’t turn my back on your pigs if you did that.
Joey Maloney
Practical question: who, besides the AGUSA, has the authority to empanel a grand jury and ask for sedition indictments against Congressmembers?
Roger Moore
@Paul in KY:
The problem is that your 109- actually 117, since the Republican caucus has 232 members- represents the Hastert rule. What I’m saying is that Boehner seems to be applying a rule that he needs to get 217 Republican votes (half plus one of the 432 current members of the House) to bring it to the floor, i.e. it has to be able to pass with zero support from the Democrats. This is a crazy rule, since it gives any group of 16 or more House Republicans veto power over the whole institution. The Teabagger caucus is obviously bigger than that, and there are apparently enough Republicans who have listened to the President and Senate Republicans to shoot down the latest craziness from the Teabaggers, so it’s currently impossible for Boehner to get his 217 Republican votes for any proposal. That’s the core of the impasse.
SFAW
@Roger Moore:
Yes, Roger, I know. I already noted such in my ETA for 135
Paul in KY
@gbear: Hit them with that ‘unitary chief executive’ crap. That would be ironic, if Pres. Obama had to use the BS device concocted by Addington to drown the teabaggers.
NonyNony
@Roger Moore:
Boehner is an idiot. Because for the Teabaggers to get a candidate up over the hump they need to find someone that basically 216 of the 232 Republicans will vote for (my understanding is that a Speaker won’t be seated with less than 50% of the vote – maybe they need 217). This means that in order to be replaced there would need to be a candidate that would satisfy the 50 or so nutjob Teapartiers AND the other 180 or so other members of his caucus. This person does not exist. None of the Teabaggers actually want the responsibility, and none of the rest of his caucus has knives out for him because they don’t want it either.
Everyone says “Cantor” – if Cantor had the support and wanted the job, he’d have it. He doesn’t have the job. Therefore either enough of his colleagues hate his guts that he won’t get it OR he doesn’t actually want it.
Boehner could easily do what he wants to do and while he’d suffer wailing and gnashing of teeth at the end of the day he’d still be speaker. So either he’s a moron or he’s doing what he wants to do. Either explanation works.
scav
@Paul in KY: “Yoo built this.”
catclub
@Joel: Or by short, he means short term investments such as cash.
Paul in KY
@Ruckus: Praise Jeebus for that! Have said it several times, but if she had gotten within a heartbeat of Presidency, McCain would have had an ‘accident’.
She is that kind of person, IMO.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: Rules sre meant to be broken, if he doesn’t want to get broken. Thank you for the explanation.
Roger Moore
@Joey Maloney:
AGUSA doesn’t have that power. For all practical purposes, Congress is answerable only to itself for its acts as a legislature; that’s in Article 1, Section 6. They can be tried for Treason, Felony, and Breach of the Peace, but only for acts outside their chambers. For their official actions “for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.” If they choose to do something completely disastrous in their official capacity, the only Constitutional response is through elections.
burnspbesq
@Ruckus:
I was thinking that watching them bargain for their lives with the locals would make for amusing reality TV.
Paul in KY
@scav: Yeah, it was that weirdo. I think Addington put him up to it, though.
scav
@Paul in KY: Could very well be, although I think the gut reaction works best for license plates. Footnotes on those require really good eyes or tight formation driving.
ETA. meaning, it was my lippy gene breaking out, not my correction gene because I honestly don’t know enough of the background.
sherparick
I read Bruce Bartlett’s latest Economix column. If what he says is true, Cruz, Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and the House Teahadist caucus really want a default and do think they are surrendering a huge concession to the Democrats and the White House just to raise it. They think by holding true to the debt ceiling they would instantly balance the budget and “end the spending” on moochers with taxes on “producers.” It actually has a large number of of advocates in the Libertarian/Austrian Faux News reality realm, starting with the late James Buchannan, Nobel Prize winner, and “father” of Public Choice theories of economics. Bartlett goes into some detail at: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/for-many-hard-liners-debt-default-is-the-goal/
If this is true then Boehner might not ever have the votes to raise the debt ceiling if he depends on Republicans alone.
Patrick Beeson
What the Tea Party Republicans have to done to the United States of America, Herod did to the newborns!
Roger Moore
@Paul in KY:
The problem is that he’s concocted the rule because he’s trying to defend his back from the Teabaggers’ knives. He’s afraid that he’ll be broken if he allows anything to pass that doesn’t have enough support from his caucus to sustain him as Speaker. What this means in practice is that he’s abandoned the actual power of the Speakership and is just a mouthpiece, but he’s apparently happier playing Speaker Sockpuppet- even when the puppeteers can’t decide what he’s supposed to say- than not be Speaker at all.
Joey Maloney
@Roger Moore: But they’ve been conspiring outside the House. We know of at least one evening meeting after the House had been adjourned for the day where they plotted the shutdown. Ted Cruz’s meetings with the Teatard suicide squad have not been part of official business. If Larry Craig wasn’t immune from arrest I don’t see why these clods are.
Maybe I’m talking out my ass – no, wait, I’m definitely talking out my ass, but in this limited case I think my ass knows what it’s talking about – but I don’t think A1S6 gives them a pass. So accepting that arguendo – who can indict them?
SFAW
@burnspbesq:
I’m thinking it’d be kinda like John Turturro in the forest in “Miller’s Crossing,” but without the happy ending.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@fuckwit: I think you are giving them to much credit. My take on the tea tard’s reasoning is; shut down + ? = VICTORY OVER ISLAMO-ATHEIST-SOCIALIST-NEGRO- COMMUNIST-NON CANADIAN IMIGRATION-FACSIM for WOLVERINES!!!! Details like defining what “?” is are for lesser mortals.
I think the snarks are on target about Braveheat – I really think the conservatives would love it if they were about to be drawn and quartered while screaming “freedom” Well, at lest up until the knife started cutting into their stomach.
SFAW
@Joey Maloney:
You, and about 12 million other commenters here. You ain’t so special.
Roger Moore
@Joey Maloney:
It doesn’t matter. Their disastrous policy is legal on its face, and there is no crime in conspiring to do something legal.
Elie
@fuckwit:
Actually, you don’t point out what they would do next… that is the part that would have the blow bag for them. So while I agree on part of your statement, the outcome for them is not stated in your summary and its all bad for them — all bad.
johnny aquitard
@Cassidy: Been nosing around some ‘prepper’ sites off and on for several years. It’s been good for laughs although lately it’s not so funny anymore.
Typical are the guys who write about head shots and double taps and yet their sig contains scripture and that little jeebus fish emblem. Or the pious believer I came across the other day who sells bullets and pastes onto the lid of each box a little slip of paper containing a few lines of scripture about how Jesus loves us so much. I am not making that up. And there is of course a lot of ‘Obummer’ and ‘thugs’ and ‘stupid libs’ and ‘molon labe’ and gadsen-flag-type morans preaching to the howler monkey choir.
They tell themselves it’s about ‘When The Balloon Goes Up’, ‘TEOTWAWKI’ (the end of the world as we know it — apparently that acrynym is univerally understood among the survival nuts) and the coming ‘urban zombie hordes’. They don’t give a fuck about hurricanes or earthquakes, of course; they want to defund agencies that monitor such things. ‘Zombie’ as they use it is their euphemism for ‘n-CLANG’ and the Other, and basically the usual fundy right-wing racist boogeymen.
It is indicative that they think the best way to survive any natural disaster invariably involves multiple weapons and a backpack stuffed with magazines of ammo. And not an ounce of empathy, sympathy or desire to help others less fortunate will be found those backpacks. In fact they state right out those guns are there to ‘defend’ their supplies from the hordes of poor and destitute who will be fleeing the evil city.
This is where this head shots and double taps and urban zombies business comes in. They know what they want to do to The Other, they just want a reason to do it and they want some cover so they can say it doesn’t look like they’re doing what it is they’re really doing.
In short all this ‘prepping’ they’ve been obsessed with is prepping for an insurrection not a natural disaster. The eclipsing of white privilege as symbolized by Obama is the disaster they’re arming themselves for.
But the crazy has seemed to reach a fevered pitch now. They are convinced the coming collapse of civilization, i.e., white civilization, is happening now.
Question is, how many will jump from the ledge they’ve talked them selves onto. Some already have so I am sure at least a few more will. (And it will be again a few bad apples, irresponsible guns owners, yadda-yadda-yadda, and have nothing to do with the incessant bombardment of the suspicious, paranoid and violent minds by propaganda of hate and fear from right wing media and re-echoed by our right wing pols.)
The right wing has been incubating their own terrorists and lone wolf suicide attackers for a while now. They’ve been building the social infrastructure for insurrection for years.
SFAW
@sherparick:
Slightly OT, but their definitions of “moochers” and “producers” is actually about 180 degrees off from reality. Someone building a widget is a “producer”; the CEO that makes 350 time the average wage for one of the producers is the “moocher,” living off of the production of others.
sparrow
@Paul in KY: Other girls (and their parents, and the whole damn town if they’re football stars) worship them. Other boys want to be them. They’re 14 and take peer cues very seriously. It’s probably in some part human biology, but a big part is the cultural set-up that puts young men on pedestals. Meanwhile women are pretty clearly seen as only as good as their “catch”. Sorry to say it, but even I was not immune to that kind of attitude at 14, probably because my FRONTAL LOBE was not fully developed. It’s even worse if you’re shy and insecure and maybe not that popular. There is no way at all that she thought or even had a concept that this is what was going to happen to her. :( It’s child abuse in my opinion and the guy should wear that title for life.
PaulW
Dear people who voted for Republicans the last 20 years:
This is YOUR effing fault. You all voted for anti-government, “drown it in a bathtub” type of leaders and THIS IS WHAT THEY GIVE US.
Signed:
The “Grover Norquist Should Be Tried for Sedition” Petition Squad
Elie
What is the exit strategy that avoid harm or death once you jump out of a fifth floor window? Hope that the laws of gravity stop working? That someone will be under the window with a big pillow?
I can see that right now they mean to force this thing to the break point, but this leaves them in a completely nihilistic place — destruction for its own sake…they will not win the post debt ceiling argument —
SFAW
@johnny aquitard:
12 monkeys, baby!
Chyron HR
@SFAW:
Is that the one where he gets teabagged by a giant robot?
Cassidy
@johnny aquitard: Heh, I’m thinking we read some of the same sites, lol. As I mentioned earlier, I really used to enjoy shooting. I figured out that you could monitor the state of RW gun nuts agitation by paying attention to how much certain guns sell for. The good news is, the vast majority of those guys are obsessed with having the right
cool guy appearancegear and the rightmanly pose in the moonlighttactics than any kind of good survival instincts.Paul in KY
@sparrow: Good explanation. Practical problem (for her & family) is that if the boys/men are tried as adults & convicted, they will get serious time, in very serious jails.
A lot of people seem to think that if no real force was used (i.e. wasn’t rapey-rape), the mandated sentences are too harsh for little Chauncey, thus no prosecution.
Patrick
@SFAW:
It is not limited to that, in my view. I was against the Iraq war, yet I was forced to pay for it. The moocher to me is whoever was for this disaster and didn’t pay their fair share for the war cost.
Tom Q
@Elie: As the song in the movie Crazy Heart goes, “Funny how falling feels like flying…for a little while”
Roger Moore
@sparrow:
I don’t think you can ignore the age difference, either. There is definitely an age hierarchy in high school, with upperclassmen being inherently way cooler than underclassmen, so dating somebody much older is a big social coup. That makes underclassmen especially vulnerable to being exploited by upperclassmen, and the social pressures are much bigger for girls than for boys. A socially awkward freshman girl is easy prey for a star athlete upperclassman.
aretino
@MomSense:
all good options, but I think terrorism has to be on the list, too
Paul in KY
@Cassidy: I’d say you just figure out where they are & when TWAWKIE or whatever the Hell they call it happens, you just go there & snipe them & take their stuff.
Then you have to move said stuff to stop the next zombie horde that had basically the same idea.
SFAW
@Chyron HR:
Are you maybe thinking of “Transformers XXXVII: The Tea-Baggering”?
Robert Sneddon
@Paul in KY: This guy did.
SatanicPanic
@NonyNony:
This. Or he’s just trying to keep the dummies happy by pretending to be tough. At any rate I don’t think he loses his job and I think he knows this. Speaker Goehmert is not going to happen.
johnny aquitard
@Roger Moore: Yes, that’s what happened before. But:
1) They want to bring pain. They believe nobody’s feeling pain quite like they are, it’s excruciating being white and ignored, and they want to bring that pain to everyone else, plus interest.
Also, they believe when it things get bad enough so people are roasting pigeons on a curtain rod, they believe they’re gonna have the curtain rod.
2) I’ll say again, they know what they want to do to The Other, they just want a reason to do it and they want some cover so they can say it doesn’t look like they’re doing what it is they’re really doing.
Doesn’t look like in their own minds they’re doing what it is they’re doing, that is.
They want that moral outrage, that imaginary justification because it makes them feel so good about themselves. Wingers are all about their feelings being respected, about feeling good for what they are doing, even as they are doing really shitty things to other people. This is one of those areas where not only do they want to shoot the hostage, they insist they be allowed to feel properly righteous about doing it. Because then it is surely Obama’s fault. So they’re right and virtuous in impeaching him. And so it’s only natural he be made to feel pain too. That’s what he gets for being so bad he got himself impeached. If he had done nothing wrong he wouldn’t need to be punished.
They like punishing people. And they want to let themselves off hook for it. That’s a fundamental for fundie right wingers.
Paul in KY
@Robert Sneddon: Wow! What a character. He was lucky he knew conversational German.
Shows what a well rounded liberal arts education will do for you.
Chyron HR
@SFAW:
No, the second one, Revenge of the Revenger.
celticdragonchick
@Chyron HR:
Is that the one where he gets teabagged by a giant robot?
Speaking of which…
Yes, it is just as bad as you might imagine.
Comrade Mary
Senate deal is GONE.
liberal
@Patrick:
Since the wealthy are the ones who put that monster in office to begin with, they should have the $hit taxed out of them to pay for it.
Of course, not all wealthy supported him and it, but that’ll have to be chalked up to collateral damage.
liberal
@sherparick:
Yes, the class known as “economists” is particularly scum-ridden, at least in the higher echelons.
FDRLincoln
Ted Cruz and his fellow travelers are traitors to their country.
At times like this, I believe it would have been salutary and medicinal in the long run if Jefferson Davis, every Confederate cabinet member, every member of the Confederate congress and all Confederate state legislators who voted for succession, plus all Confederate officers of the rank Brigadier General and above, had been hung. The entire Confederate plantation owning and leadership class should have destroyed root and branch, just as the Nazi regime was.
Bloodthirsty of me, I know. But the poison of Confederate treachery and racism has been holding our nation back 150 years after that war “ended.”
SFAW
@FDRLincoln:
Don’t hold back …
chopper
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
of course, the bill would go to the senate first. reid could strip the shitty language and put it up for a floor vote while the president calls a special session of the house, requiring the house goopers to show back up (or they could balk on the date, at which point they own the default by refusing to go to work). assuming some gop shithead in the senate doesn’t try to block reid’s bill (and own default), it goes back to the house and the spotlight is on boehner again.
FDRLincoln
I realize of course that such a course of action would have ignited years of guerrilla warfare. But you know, we had that anyway with the KKK, Nathan Bedford Forrest, etc, then another 100+ years of slavery-in-all-but-name and now this destroy-the-government ideology.
Ruckus
@burnspbesq:
OK, adds a little spice to the deal. The rest of us may be less willing to risk them not staying put on the runway.
Just in time for the next plane to land.
Hopefully a turboprop.
jenn
Just checking – has everyone here contacted their congresscritter – if not, do it!
Ruckus
@NonyNony:
Fixit for you
FDRLincoln
I called my almost-TP congresswoman and got little response.
Patrick
@liberal:
Most of the supporters of that war were not wealthy. To me they are moochers since they haven’t paid their fair share, rich or not rich.
Cassidy
@jenn: Called mine- Yoho- a couple of days ago. They are convinced everything will be just fine by not raising the debt limit.
Trollhattan
@Cassidy:
Isn’t it high time he came home and tended to the large animals? What a maroon.
Belafon
@FDRLincoln: I think what as to be the difference is that we don’t allow it to continue like the country did 100+ years ago.
Cassidy
@Trollhattan: I wish. When i called, I reminded him that a lot of his constituents are military and DOD Civilians and that his actions were threatening the livelihood and benefits of a lot of people, stuff he never bothered to earn himself. The staffer had no answer for that beyond boilerplate “support the troops” stuff.
NonyNony
@chopper:
Okay, so what happens when the House Republicans tell the black President to go F himself with his special session? I mean, if they want a Constitutional Crisis it don’t get much more crisis-y than that.
Either way the optics are bad for the Tea Partiers – who are supposed to be so Constitution loving. Do they do the bidding of the blackity-black-black guy President and convene the special session as the Constitution requires, or do they tell him to FOAD and violate their oath of office? The fact that that decision could even be forced upon them suggests to me that Boehner’s “force the Senate to take up this bill and then leave town” idea isn’t going to happen. Honestly if the House does that and then an idjit member of the Senate decides to filibuster or refuse unanimous consent to allow the Senate to strip the language and send it right back, I suspect that even the die hard process lovers in the Dem caucus in the Senate will realize that they need to use a nuclear option and have Biden come in and use his power as the President of the Senate to do what needs to be done. They can play procedural games, but when push comes to shove even the hardest of the die hards will have a lot of pressure to get this resolved.
Yatsuno
@NonyNony: They can actually be arrested by the Sergeant-At-Arms and jailed in the basement. It won’t resolve anything but it could be funny.
NonyNony
@Yatsuno:
Admittedly that would be funny.
But wouldn’t the Speaker have to send the Sargeant at Arms after them to drag them back? I don’t think that the Sargeant at Arms has the authority to do that on his own initiative. (I suppose Reid could send the Senate Sargeant at Arms to do it, but does he have the authority to do that?)
But more to the point – if they refuse to show up is there any procedural technique that could be used so that the folks who do show up vote in a new Speaker, pass what needs to be done, and then adjourn? I suspect the answer is no, but since this is all new and different territory I figure it’s worth asking. Plus that would completely get Boehner off the hook, though I imagine that ethics inquiries would immediately open up on all of the folks who had saved his ass as soon as the House came back into full session.
Roger Moore
@FDRLincoln:
You’re asking for something considerably more brutal than what happened to the Nazis. The post WWII tribunals convicted people only of crimes they had been directly involved with; nobody was convicted just for being a member of the party, government, or military unless they were shown to be personally involved with some kind of crime. A fair percentage of the people put on trial after WWII were acquitted outright, and some of the highest ranking people who were convicted were given either limited sentences (10 years for Doenitz and 20 years for Speer) or life in prison (Hess and Raeder) rather than death. The lower level trials produced relatively few death sentences, almost half of which were commuted to life. The long-term destruction of the Nazi party and ideology was carried out by forbidding them to hold office and by official, long-term denunciation. It was not carried out by mass slaughter.
gorram
@maye: Someone else has probably already explained this, but Boehner and the entire House GOP pretty much made it so that all modifications to their budget have to be put presented before a vote in the House by Cantor (or his designee). So at least a lot of power was given by Boehner (and moderate Republicans) to Cantor at the beginning of this… and we can all see how good at using it he’s been.
Trollhattan
@Cassidy:
I guess you can consider yourselves patriotic speedbumps in the path of the Republican march to victory over government as we know it.
“Thank you for your service. Now fuck off.”
Even carpetbagger Tom McClintock in his safe, red district in NE Calif is getting some pushback for this nonsense. Have not heard whether it perhaps puts his seat in play.
drkrick
@Roger Moore:
Given a BAC of .17 seven hours after her last drink she was luck to survive the experience. She clearly way too intoxicated at the time of the rape for her opinion of the “star athlete upperclassman” to have had anything to do with what happened. The pigs might as well have been using a vinyl doll.
johnny aquitard
@@SFAW: Don’t they have those parachute deploy things where they can swoop low over the field and let the parachute jerk the palletized sonsabitches out of the hold and land skidding face-first a few hundred yards over the dirt and broken glass runway before hitting the barbed wire fence and plowing into a tree?
And if they don’t skid far enough the first time before slamming into a tree, snatch up ’em up on the next pass with a big sky hook, go around again and do it again.
Oh hell, just drop the fuckers. From a mile up. It’s not right to risk plane and crew again.
I’m all for that.
Gene108
@johnny aquitard:
Look up Wilmington NC 1898. In there great-grand daddy’s day they did not need much of an excuse to act.
I think the psychological roots of the lynch mob mindset have been handed down.
Elie
I tell ya, this isn’t going to happen…
I live in a place with lots of small business tea partier types — they are not going to want to see their livihoods and incomes trashed.. nope. At lot of them are already on the edge and a failing economy would not help them.
This will end. Their ends had no connection to the exteme means they chose.. they were not in control and did not think it through and I strongly believe Boehner will pull the plug on this adventure within the next 12 – 24 hours.
Watch
Gene108
@Roger Moore:
There is no reverse dynamic for boys. Upperclassman girls are not going to swoon over a freshman boy.
When I was in high school if an upperclassman boy was dating a freshman girl there was the presumption he was trying to get laid, because the difference in social maturity and life goals at those ages is pretty significant.
chopper
@NonyNony:
then they can’t make the prez own a default. their idea is to pass something and leave town so it’s all on the senate and the WH.
boehner and his pals would look like assholes if the president called a special session and they said ‘fuck you, we’re done working’.
chopper
@chopper:
also, they don’t violate their oath of office if the house goopers don’t agree on a time for said session.
of course boehner and his crew come off as dicks. that would be obama’s best play here – turn it around on the house and make them look like they’re going on vacation before the job is done.
fuckwit
@FDRLincoln: Well, no. We didn’t destroy the Nazi regime, we protected and Operation Paperclip’ed some of them. We did some de-Nazifcation after the war, but we did it kind of gently. It was the Soviets who did their de-Nazification the more brutal way you suggested. They literally went around executing and blacklisting Nazis, seizing assets, etc. They always were outraged and deeply suspicous that the USA treated the Nazis with such gentleness and process (i.e. the way we treated the Confederates). The Russians were not fucking around. They really did succeed at removing Nazis root and branch. Us, not so much.
EconWatcher
@Gene108: @Elie:
Well said, and correct in my view.
johnny aquitard
@Elie: You seem to be assuming small business tea-party types are the engine that drives the tea-party agenda. They’re not. They’re the window dressing that lets the people who really set the agenda advertise this as ‘grass roots’.
It’s not a grass roots, it never was. The extremely wealthy are behind this.
Why wouldn’t the Kochs et al short the market and let the market dive? That’s better than insider information. They have found a way to control the market. It’s crude, sure, but it does work and it won’t hurt them. They can make a lot of money off that ability.
They get a win either way after that. If Boehner caves, the market will recover and they go on a buying spree (and perhaps get a new speaker more on-board with their little project of overthrowing the government). If Obama caves, they win everything and they go on a buying spree.
Roger Moore
@drkrick:
Especially considering that she was dumped outside her house in sub-freezing temperatures and inadequate clothing. That alone seems to justify prosecution for reckless endangerment.
I don’t think she would have been over at the guy’s house or drinking who knows what if she didn’t have stars in her eyes. I don’t mean that as an excuse for rape; it’s more of an explanation for who is doing the raping. It’s generally the BMOC types, and that’s because they’re the ones who have the opportunity.
FDRLincoln
@fuckwit: Good point. I guess my inner Stalin is getting the best of me.
I’ll compromise and settle for hanging Jefferson Davis, the Confederate cabinet, and all officers of Lieutenant General rank. Then de-Confederatization courts for all landowners and a massive crackdown on the KKK.
FDRLincoln
@Roger Moore: This is all true although some of the Nazi sentences were likely too lenient. As stated in my comment to fuckwit, I have offered a compromise proposal.
FDRLincoln
And really I am just venting anyway, given that I am generally opposed to the death penalty and am a non-violent type. But geez these fuckers have pissed me off.
Roger Moore
@FDRLincoln:
In favor of your original idea, there’s a big difference between the Nazis and Confederates. The Nazis could only be punished for crimes they specifically committed because there wasn’t anything inherently criminal about joining a German political party or serving in the German government or armed forces; they had to do something on top of that to be criminals. OTOH, joining the Confederate government or armed forces clearly constituted treason and could reasonably have been punished as such. The US government was making a concession by not trying every last Confederate for treason, and a big concession by not going after the leaders of the Confederacy with everything they had.
karen
And this is why I say the GOP doesn’t give a fuck about the Presidency. They don’t have to. They’ve just proven that as long as they have either the House majority or Senate majority or both and have the funding for their owners to buy the country, who gives a fuck about the President? It’s a puppet, a symbolic title.
SFAW
@johnny aquitard:
Does any of them look like Gary Oldman?
joel hanes
@sparrow:
the whole damn town if they’re football stars
I’ve never been to Maryville.
But I have spent a great deal of time in very small towns up and down the Midwest.
In many such towns, high-school athletics are the entire extent of civic pride — there may not be many other things around which one can arrange or feel tribal loyalty.
Title IX helped, in that many schools found that while their boys’ football would never go to State, and might never win a game, their girls’ soccer or basketball or gymnastics team truly is something of which they can be proud.