.
… Because, as they see it, they were rewarded for past shutdowns. This appeared before the President’s address, but the post-speech GOP screeching seems to support its thesis. Dave Weigel, at Bloomberg Politics:
One year and one month ago, the Republican Party was doomed. Its conservative wing in the House, egged on by outside groups like Heritage Action, had refused to include the Affordable Care Act in the must-pass funding bill. The result, a two-week government shutdown, was a “total disaster” for the GOP, a mistake that threatened the majority. Public Policy Polling, a North Carolina firm favored by Democrats, found “as many as 37 Republicans” in danger…
The revisionist history of the shutdown began as soon as the shutdown ended. When the Democratic Senate bottled the Republican House’s ACA-defunding bills, House Republicans started moving “piecemeal bills” that funded portions of the government. By January 2014, Texas Senator Ted Cruz could say that he “repeatedly voted to fund the federal government.” And through the rest of 2014, Cruz claimed that the shutdown fight, rather than distracting from the first wretched fortnight of HealthCare.gov, turned Obamacare into a winning Republican issue…
“This is the second shut down where the GOP got blamed and saw no catastrophe at the ballot box,” wrote RedState.com’s Erick Erickson on Tuesday. “Every horror story every talking head within the GOP Establishment trotted out to scare congressmen and senators into caving turned out to be crap.”…
In those circles, it’s clear that the president can be stared down on immigration. And it’s clear that a fight, even if it led to shutdown, would be either rewarded or forgotten by voters when they returned to the polling booths in November 2016. The reality of the Affordable Care Act had, after all, ended up winning elections for them in 2014. Why wouldn’t the reality of Obama’s new blunders elect the Republicans of 2016?
It’s all deeply frustrating to Democrats. Virginia Representative Gerry Connolly, whose district’s contractors and federal employees recoiled at the shutdown, had subsequently watched his state reelect its Republican congressmen and nearly knock off its popular Democratic senator. There clearly was no shutdown hangover for Republicans.
“From their point of view, frankly, while it had a temporary impact on their polling numbers, they fully recovered from that and paid no price at all on Nov. 4,” said Connolly as he headed into a vote. “Politicians are all Pavlovian at a very elemental level. What’s rewarded, what’s punished. They look at that, and they think it seems to have been rewarded. It certainly wasn’t punished.”…
Never underestimate the destructive abilities of a malign idiot — or a party full of them.
satby
Can’t really argue with their logic, since they only care about winning.
Suffern ACE
They were rewarded. How can you look at the election and not think that the majority of people who came to the polls like this? Those government workers might as well pick up their testicles and return home.
fuckwit
Not entirely-on-topic, but I have an open rant to share with everyone who has been spamming my email for years now.
PLEASE FUCKING STOP ASKING ME FOR MONEY.
At first it was just action calls, sign this petition, this “outrage” or this “unbelievable” thing or some Senator telling me how they are “fighting” etc etc.
For a while I was getting OFA nagging me to volunteer, to make calls, etc. I always did those.
Even in the early days when it was just a few people nagging me for money, I’d make the time and find the money and give a little here and there where I could.
But nowadays, when I dig through my political spam account, it’s 100% asking me for money. Well, it’s also PRETENDING to ask me to sign a petition but is actually just asking me for money: the petition is obviously a ruse and it’s just a money-bomb.
Even OFA. Especially OFA, I’m looking at you.
Is this the post-Citizens-United world? Where the relentless onslaught of fundraising spam turns liberals completely off to politics?
If so, this would explain the topic phenomenon. No price to pay for Rethug stupidity. Outrage, sure, but then, anyone who might get involved or campaign or do anything is told, dozens of times a day, that WE DON’T MATTER ONLY OUR MONEY DOES.
I don’t have any fucking money. I can barely keep myself afloat. I don’t have $5 or $20 or $1 for your fucking “deadline”. No I cannot help you, and since there are hundreds of these missives in my inbox every time I check, there’s no way I can give even a fraction of you-all anything. So, I give nothing. And I do nothing. And the Rethugs keep winning.
Hey, Democrats. Guess what? I’m not a fucking bottomless money pit. By definition, I’m not, I’m a Democrat! If I were rich, I’d be a Rethug– they’re the ones most clearly looking out for the interests of the 1%. But now I’m not so sure. If all the Democrats want is money, they’re fishing a dry creek.
Mnemosyne
For the people who were reassuring me about my interview, it got rescheduled for Monday. (I could have gone for tomorrow, but the time(s) available were bumping right up against a doctor’s appointment I can’t miss.) So now the weekend-long stress begins …
Pogonip
@Suffern ACE: Several Republican politicians pointed this out: “Voters must not mind the shutdowns too much, we’re here.
Which for all I know is true. But I also happen to know that big defense contractors, who can afford many more politicians than the Tea Party can, minded the shutdown very much indeed. If these fools go through with it, they are pretty much ensuring their first term will be their last. You can’t campaign without financing.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@fuckwit: Tightening up your spam filter is probably free.
jl
” Why wouldn’t the reality of Obama’s new blunders elect the Republicans of 2016? ”
‘Because that won’t be the midterms’, is my response.
But if they feel rewarded, I guess the GOP will keep doing the same schtick for another two years.
Edit: And, I haven’t been asking anyone here for money… at least for a while…
Mnemosyne
@fuckwit:
Unfortunately, I think it is. When Republicans are able to pour money into the smallest races — like city council races — the only way to fight it is with more money.
I’m starting to think that one of the reasons Obama won in 2012 was that Republicans had to divide their money up and didn’t have quite enough to go around for everyone. That’s why they’re doing so much better in the midterms — they have a shitload of money that they can put into minuscule elections, whereas a presidential year siphons a lot of that away.
Hal
I’m sorry, but any analysis that ignores the historically low turnout in a midterm election that normally favors Republicans (not the Dems couldn’t change that reality) is to me automatically flawed. A two week shutdown quickly forgotten? Sure. How about multiple weeks? What about cutting off health care for millions of people? What about all of the Latino voters who are going to be encouraged to vote for the Democrat in 2016 because of Obama’s actions today and the resulting responses from Republicans.
I don’t doubt the reasoning on what angle the GOP will come from on this issue and others, I doubt the logic that it will work out for them nearly as well in 2016 as it did in 2014.
Hildebrand
88% of my students are Hispanic. Had a number of them text me tonight, asking me if I was proud of our President.
Absolutely.
KG
I was just looking at the turnout stats in a couple of states. How is it that we go from 75% in 2012 to 45% in 2014? That just amazes me. I mean I get why turnout generally would be down – two schools of thought: don’t vote, it’ll only encourage the bastards; and, they’re all lying bastards anyway and nothing will ever change. But how do you lose almost half your electorate in two years?
TaMara (BHF)
Open thread? How about a new pix of Bixby, who keeps me so busy I barely have time to worry about politics. Good dog.
Mr. Twister
The shutdowns aren’t really shutdowns. We shutdown some peripheral stuff and the rest keeps trucking along. You want some consequences, the shut it ALL down. No border crossing, no TSA and thus no flying, no food inspection, no museums, no Parks, to refunds, no Medicare / Medicaid, no SSA checks. The list goes on and on. Turn out the f*cking lights and see how people react.
Suffern ACE
@Pogonip: how many of the shutdown fanatics lost? Yeah those defense contractors sure showed em.
And next you’ll be telling me women care about educating their children and birth control access. Crazy talk, all of it.
satby
@Mr. Twister: they’ll blame the President. Cruz and Orange man are already working that angle, if there’s a shutdown the Pres caused it.
MikeBoyScout
Good political moments are rare in usual political times.
I’m going to sit here and enjoy the smile on my face, just pleased as punch that I played a part electing Obama.
And you did too.
Belafon
@satby: They tried that the last two times, and while there was no consequence for them at the election, they did suffer at the time. The worst that will happen is that Obama doesn’t run for president again.
Mr. Twister
@satby: For sure and the news media plays right along.
Valdivia
Weigel has become very partisan since he started at Bloomberg. Pushing the Gruber frenzy, and many gop talking points with glee. I used to enjoy his previous writing much more.
Must say I am so happy about the Obama immigration speech: Reconquista bitchez! :)
Valdivia
@MikeBoyScout:
exactly the way I feel tonight
Punchy
Um….yeah, they WERE rewarded. In a huge way. How could you not make the assumption they did?
Major Major Major Major
I get those emails all the time, but I used to work for the DNC so I assume I’m on like twenty lists at this point.
Kryptik, A Man Without a Country
I’m not seeing how they weren’t rewarded for it. Their constituents loved it enough to come out in droves, ours clearly yawned for the most part or felt their intransigence wasn’t motivating enough, amongst other things.
Bill Arnold
@satby:
I wish news shows had the nerve to tell Cruz that he is full of shit (when he says stuff like this), or at least say it.
raven
Aw man, do we have to go in already?
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Have they been in the water?
BBA
The current budget expires December 11, and I fully expect the government to stay closed until January 21, 2017.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Bohdi has, he’ll chase the ball anywhere. Lil Bit wants no part of it! I was not going to wade out up to my chest and throw this time but that lasted about 5 minutes. The air got up to the upper 50’s and the water is probably 65 so I was ok. I fished from 9:30 to 5:00 and caught one hammerhead. Beautiful day and better tomorrow!
Anne Laurie
@Valdivia: Since I first discovered Weigel, back around 2008, I’ve used him as my “Speaker to GOP idiots” — he seems to be a small-l libertarian, but he’s good at wading through the latest Wingnut Wurlitzer bafflegab & giving a precis.
That means that the crazier/meaner the GOP spokesperson, the meaner/crazier/more triumphalist his field reports sound. Or so I assume. I read the linked article and didn’t hear “Yay, now comes the shutdown, for reasons”, I heard “Here is why the GOP thinks they won the shutdown, because from their perspective, it worked.”
You and I agree it’s a stupid, short-term perspective that hurt a lot of innocent bystanders, but that’s not how Ted Cruz and Louie Gohmert saw it, so that’s not what Weigel is reporting here.
James E Powell
It isn’t about shutting down the government. It’s about standing up to that [insert racist epithet]. Their base voters love it and reward it with their votes. They support anyone who expresses the same rage that they feel and they punish anyone who shows moderation or the emotional maturity of an adult.
They do not care how it affects the country or even themselves. They would vote for someone who closed down their employer if that person did so in order to defy Obama.
raven
The last cast reeled in.
Valdivia
@Anne Laurie:
yes and I agree that’s usually how I read him. I follow him on twitter though and this past week I have seen he is one of the main drivers of the Gruber frenzy. Openly mocking people who dare say its a stupid scandal. That was surprising to me. But in general his reports from the field feel like insanity reports and it’s good to have them
TaMara (BHF)
@raven: I don’t know what’s more beautiful in that photo, the sunset or the puppeh.
raven
@TaMara (BHF): He is a handsome critter.
catclub
@satby: This. Jindal and Cruz are repeating that phrase as fast as they can.
I have no idea whether people who do not pay attention believe them, or think it sounds desperate. It sounds desperate to me.
catclub
@Anne Laurie: But a presidential candidate can now use those shutdowns to argue for electing more Democrats to the House. It was never used in the 2014 races, as far as I heard.
Pogonip
@Suffern ACE: Ah, but you’ll notice that only when DFAS, which pays contractors as well as servicemen, looked like it was going to shut down, did the issue get sort-of resolved. What old-time Republicans would like is to shut down the government EXCEPT FOR the military-industrial complex, whereas Teabaggers, knowing that John Wayne will defend our borders, want it all gone, MIC included. Not sure where education comes into your comment, sorry. As far as pelvic issues, I fear you are making the common American mistake of thinking that “female” is synonymous with “feminist.”. That ain’t necessarily so.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Pogonip: That is a really a cute little fantasy of the Defense Industry you have, it’s so charmingly out of the 1980s. The only problem with it is after the the end of the Cold War all the contractors consolidated and diversified into civilian and oversea markets so the ups and downs of the US Federal budget are a minor irritation to the Boeings and Lockeeds of the world. And of course there is the typical Defense Contractor worker; ex-military straight into defense contractors, so naturally as such thinks himself a Libertarian whose never taken a dime from the public purse – in other words to damn stupid to realize those shuts downs effect his pay check.
Linnaeus
The Republican Party is the Keyser Söze of American politics.
Felonius Monk
Oh,Noes! (via):
Does this mean Ted Cruz blows smoke out of his ass?
BBA
@Felonius Monk: Even without the user fees I don’t see how it’s possible to defund this initiative. Obama is ordering USCIS to not deport people, and it costs nothing to not deport people.
Felonius Monk
@BBA: I agree with you. However, the rethugs have been frothing so much about defunding Obama’s executive action, I found this rather amusing.
jl
@BBA:
“t costs nothing to not deport people.’
Typical of these fiendish diabolical Obama strategies. Truly, he is an evil genius.
Wonder if that point will be part of GOP scandal mongering.
I am proud of having him as prez tonight.
jibeaux
I’d like to believe that a shutdown in November 2014 would impact November 2016 elections, but it won’t. It doesn’t help their brand any, but nothing they do does, does it?
Rommie
The 2013 shutdown got buried by the lousy ACA website rollout. It was *proof* that Gubmit Sucks and stuff. It would appear Obama was talked into not doing executive immigration reform before the election because it would rile up the Red voters and they’d all go vote against him. Alas, the Republicans made the election all about Obama anyway, and the Red voters got riled up and voted against him just the same. Gotta show that Near guy what’s what.
Now, POTUS is just trolling them AND getting to do something he wanted at the same time. He has no more to lose, as his job is safe unless pulls a dead girl/live boy monstrous, out of character act, or a bunch of Senate Democrats turn traitor (and I mean Traitor in exactly the by-the-book definition.)
It’s going to be up to whomever runs in 2016 to have a strategy counter to the inevitable He/She is just going to be Obama’s 3rd term, so vote against that damn Sheriff one last time!
Morzer
Kris Kobach is already talking about ethnic cleansing of whites as a consequence of the president’s “lawlessness” (pretty rich for a vote suppressing racist!) I fear what will happen if the right wing lunkheads keep pushing this hateful nonsense. White men are already the leading domestic terrorist demographic and this is only going to whip the crazies with guns into even more of a frenzy.
talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/kris-kobach-obama-ethnic-cleansing
I have a bad feeling that historians will remember this as the age when white people finally lost their collective mind.
Violet
@Mnemosyne: Congrats on getting the interview rescheduled. Don’t think of it as stress. Think of it as an opportunity to fine tune your interview skills. And enjoy your weekend. You’ll be much more comfortable in the interview if you’ve had a fun or relaxing weekend.
Elie
@Mnemosyne:
Don’t think too much. Stay loose and positive…
Elie
..And none of the networks covered the announcement of this major policy affecting probably the fastest growing ethnic group in the US. Why bother? Only whites count, right?
Violet
@TaMara (BHF): Bixby is getting so big! He looks like a teenager, not a puppy.
@raven: Awww…that’s adorable. And a great photo.
Mike E
So, in the midst of his “Yay, Obama did it!” post, Kos slipped in this slice of fried gold:
Nice. Good job, Mr President, I hope you don’t mind if I chuck a few leftover turd bombs at you anyway…gotta keep in practice!
FlipYrWhig
@Mike E: All pundits say “people” when they mean “me.” Markos is no different.
Pogonip
@Morzer: Pfft. Ain’t nobody gonna cleanse US. White people are the meanest mofo’s on the planet when we get riled. We topple whole civilizations before breakfast. I figure if WW III ever does occur, the last two survivors will be a couple of white guys still shooting at each other from behind piles of rubble. Any white person worried about us being ethnically cleansed, as a whole, ought to be drummed out of our race as an idiot. Now, groups of whites have fallen victim to ethnic cleansing, usually by other whites, but all of us? That’s the least of my worries.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike E: Is that from Markos himself?
Pogonip
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: My fantasy was current as of 2014. How long have you dealt with defense contracting? I did it for 25 years. The U. S.’s ridiculously large military budget does indeed make it the prime source of income of even the biggest contractors. The next biggest customer, most years, is Israel.
Elizabelle
@fuckwit: Tell it re “all they want is money.” I feel the same way.
It is demotivating.
Particularly when some of these DNC geniuses were constantly emailing “All hope is lost.” “We’re losing.” “We’re going home.”
Eff ’em.
Mike E
@Elie: Their affiliates stepped up and covered this huge policy change, and all over too. Seems as tho local execs keep an eye on their ratings more than the nat’l bigwigs do.
divF
@Mike E: Whenever I see comments like Markos’, my reaction is “first-world problems / purity jerkwit”. Compare this to the elation on the part of the immigrant communities whose lives are going to be changed by this. I saw shots of them on the tube, and they were hugging, crying, and acknowledging that Obama was the one who did it. Same with health-care reform – find someone whose 22 y/o child is Type I diabetic, and ask them what they think of the PPACA.
ETA: GWB had the flattest affect of anyone I’ve seen, so don’t talk to me about Obama’s “aloofness”.
Morzer
@Pogonip:
My fear is that these damned idiot racists are just making their excuses before getting their own ethnic cleansing hard-on in gear.
Pogonip
@Morzer: I wouldn’t be too worried about that either. Not enough of them for full-blown Pizarro-type destruction. They can certainly cause plenty of smaller-scale trouble, though, so I hope the FBI continues to watch them closely.
Omnes Omnibus
@divF: I picked up some takeout from a local Mexican place shortly before the speech; this was only time they didn’t have a Mexican soccer game on the TV. They were on an English language news station waiting for the speech. I commented on it, and the guy at the register was very excited.*
*Not excited about me commenting, but about the upcoming speech – just to make things clear.
Mike E
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah. And here’s a little push back from a GOSling:
I know, I know… Obot. But still, fuckin’ A.
Morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
Had he only known that he was talking to Balloon-Juice royalty….
Hell, you’d probably still be signing autographs and kissing babies.
Morzer
@Mike E:
I think he was a bit too quick to count President Sanders out.
Still, it was well said.
Matt McIrvin
@Mike E: It’s weird. Obama’s job-approval ratings are in the low forties, not great, but there seems to be this near-universal belief that he’s down in late-Carter or late-Bush (either one) territory, and Obama’s nowhere near there. He’s not even doing worse than he himself was a year before getting reelected.
You wouldn’t know it from reading progressive blogs, but Democrats mostly approve of him. Republicans hate him with volcanic intensity and so-called independents are split. Nothing you’d find surprising, in other words, and certainly not “everyone is sick of the president.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike E: the whole thing about campaign promises is so fucking stupid. Campaign promises are statements of what the candidate would like to do and what the candidate’s priorities are. They should be read as “This is important to me and I will do it if I can,” and nothing more.
Pogonip
@Pogonip: P.S. I should have clarified I was only speaking of non-classified contracts–I never worked in classified contracts–but since most of it’s non-classified I am confident I am giving a fairly accurate picture of the MIC as of 2014.
Omnes Omnibus
@Morzer: Mere landed gentry. I am not one to put on airs.
dance around in your bones
Ok, wasn’t reading thread because watching Dogma again!! but I have had arguments w/peeps who think I am fucking exaggerating when I say the Repubs have gone insane.
“Things aren’t all black and white, doncha know??!”
Well – yeah. I’m familiar with shades of grey (not the book) but from where I sit, it looks pretty black and white (kinda hahahaha but not really).
Omnes Omnibus
@dance around in your bones: No, they are nuts. Or evil. Their choice.
Mandalay
@Mike E: These days I think about Kos about as often as I think about Keith Olbermann, which is hardly ever. He’s a big fish in his own pond.
But to be fair to him, the piece you (accurately) quoted didn’t really reflect the overall tone of his post.
Morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
So I should cancel the order for your pyramid and put the funerary temple on hold?
dance around in your bones
@fuckwit: Oh fuckie, I hear ya. I just always delete all my spam, even though they promise to give me a giant cock (and I’m a femme) PLUS a credit card.
Hahahahahhhahhha! !!!!
divF
@dance around in your bones:
(1) Pubs are insane.
(2) Am also responding so that you don’t feel like everybody has left the room. I feel late to the party on most threads, mainly because I am on the wrong (West) Coast, and by the time I get to a nice juicy thread, everyone in more easterly time zones has gone to bed. Besides, Dogma is worth multiple watches, and such behavior should be validated.
dance around in your bones
@Hildebrand: I think you mean absolutely-fucking-amente….no?
Pogonip
@Omnes Omnibus: I eavesdrop on Mexicans–not maliciously, but because I’m studying Spanish. I’d eavesdrop on the other nationalities if they were convenient (my neighborhood is about 1/3 Mexican). I rarely hear them mention any politician but Ted Cruz. They DON’T LIKE him; he’s American Cuban. “Hispanics” are not as monolithic as the Anglophone world thinks, but they all tend to dislike American Cubans, or so I gather from eavesdropping on Mexicans and reading web sites catering to other Spanish-speaking nationalities. Whether they’d like Cruz any better if he changed his position on immigration is, I suppose, a moot point, since he’s unlikely to do that .
goblue72
Please proceed, wingnuts.
You have the most liberal President that Democrats have seen since LBJ. (Sorry Jimmy, but besides the Camp David Accords, you didn’t do shit.) The Third Rifle Brigade of Butthurt may still suffer the delusion that a single payer style public option was ever in the cards, but for those of us on Planet Earth, the ACA is the most meaningful expansion of access to healthcare since Medicare/Medicaid under LBJ (another great liberal that the butthurt privileged white hippie brigade threw under the bus). Merely raising the thresholds for accessing Medicaid would have been a BFD, but the ACA is way more than that.
And that’s just ACA. Kicking the banksters out of the student loan swimming pool, ending DADT, ARRA (aka Stimulus – smaller than some wanted, but still the biggest public spending boost since the New Deal), saving the U.S. auto industry, and enacting the most progressive tax increase in a very long time.
I’m staying optimistic that he realizes he literally has nothing to lose and that the economy can take a hiccup and he goes to the mat with the GOP on this issue. CEMENT the loyalty of Latinos to the Party. Brand the GOP as completely in thrall to xenophobic racists.
Omnes Omnibus
@Morzer: No need for the pyarmid, but a temple would be nice. Can you get me declared a god? Because that would be cool.
Mandalay
@dance around in your bones:
The British media are making a big deal out of the results of an election in Britain yesterday because ‘Hairy Knorm’ Davidson of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party came sixth out of thirteen candidates.
But here the Raving Loony Party comes first out of two choices and the media is ecstatic.
Go figure.
dance around in your bones
@Omnes Omnibus:
Don’t get out of the boat! Not even for the fucking mangoes!!
divF
@goblue72: Amen and Hallelujah !
Omnes Omnibus
@goblue72:
Don’t mention the war. I mean, Christ, there is a real, tangible reason for liberals to have a problem with LBJ despite his domestic accomplishments – which were magnificent.
Omnes Omnibus
@dance around in your bones: But this was doggies in the surf.
Mandalay
@goblue72:
Sometimes doing nothing is the best thing of all….
Good luck with ever seeing that “non-achievement” again.
Mike E
@Matt McIrvin: Magazines are dead; newspapers are dying; and, network journalism is circling the drain trying to outdo their would-be replacements (cable news). Writing has been on the wall for a dog’s age.
You could see how easily they’re all manipulated at/around the margins by ‘free market’ political operatives…it’s a good indication of the true health of our trad media. Next election will illustrate this even more.
I fervently hope the president does at least a couple more of these well leveraged turns, if only to see this bloated enterprise injure itself more…or implode. I’m rooting for injuries!
Anne Laurie
@divF: New thread, new topic upstairs. You Left Coasters get to beat this horse to death while the Easterners slumber!
divF
@Omnes Omnibus: LBJ did his penance, to the extent that any man can for such a monstrous blunder. He withdrew from running for re-election in disgrace, only to watch Nixon use the war to divide the country for political advantage. The latter was more despicable than anything LBJ ever did.
ETA: moving upstairs.
dance around in your bones
@Omnes Omnibus: Andale pues! No fucking kidding! I just get all agita about people who don’t pay attention, and think it’s all politics as usual.
@divF: Well, thanks for that. I’m on the Left Coast too, and sometimes it gets a bit lonely around here at night. Which is when I am generally gearing up to spill some stories :)
dance around in your bones
@Omnes Omnibus: All righty then, I said I was watching a movie (Dogma) and laughing like a nut. because I need a good laugh again. At least until young hookup guy comes back from Portland……..
Omnes Omnibus
@divF: Of course. Nevertheless, the suggestion above that LBJ was sort of thrown under the bus because reasons was silly.
Elie
@goblue72:
Amen! Sing it brother!
BillinGlendaleCA
@divF:
That’s the story of my life on this here blog.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: We have a pyramid and an Eiffel Tower here in beautiful downtown Glendale(OK, the pyramid’s in the hills).
Mike E
@Mandalay: Agree. He comes back with this in a summary post of the EO:
Fracking immediately comes to my mind for some reason…
Omnes Omnibus
@BillinGlendaleCA: Yeah, I am on to the being declared a god thing. I think I would like that.
Yatsuno
I say bring on the forced vacation right before filing season. That should be fun. There is a HUGE amount of prep going on to make things run smoothly & if we don’t have jobs then a LOT of folks won’t get refunds on time. So yeah, please do this. Plus free days off always are good for me!
dance around in your bones
@Omnes Omnibus: Kneel before me, and I will touch you with my sword and officially declare you a God.
For a slight fee, of course :)
Omnes Omnibus
@dance around in your bones: Sorry, as a potential god, I kneel to no one.
Chris
@Pogonip:
Cubans are the only nationality on Earth who have literally nothing to do but show up in order to be given access. This while people who suffered under governments and civil wars far worse than anything the Castros ever pulled are called leeches and vermin and told to go home.
It would be news if there WASN’T resentment.
bago
Dave Weigel worked at both Reason and Wonkette. If you need to select your bias, just think of that Venn diagram.
Goblue72
@Mandalay: I’m uninterested in what Presidents do abroad except to the degree it affects us domestically. In rare exception, voters don’t give a shit – you can bomb any random 3rd world country back to the stone age and voters will still not give a shit.
Domestic policy is what mattress.
Goblue72
@Omnes Omnibus: we had Truman in Korea, and nobody gave a shit. We were in Vietnam under Kennedy and voters barely gave a shit. Start getting deep into the well of the draft pool and send middle class white kids to die – then shit got given. Switch to an all volunteer military, and once again, the shits stop being given.
LBJ. Bus. Thrown.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goblue72: If you can’t tell the difference between Korea and Vietnam, it isn’t even worth having a discussion.
Not everyone agrees with you. Hence the opinion of LBJ.
Applejinx
I’m with Fuckwit. I worked for OFA in New Hampshire for Obama’s re-election, made time to go out there again and again and goddamn sweep floors if that needed doing. I kept waiting for any sort of inkling there would be a field office, more packets of literature to compile, anything grass-roots and traditional and real, this time around. Nothing, just endless demands for money.
Money is for doing things with (unless we’ve gone to straight up highest bidder when I wasn’t looking?)
If the reality is that the country is just on eBay and the deepest pockets will win, count me out. Because I won’t win, my side won’t win, and it will WRECK me trying to match Koches and Waltons. Is that even sane? I have only one life to lose and I would rather lose it in a fighting war than pissing away what pitiful amounts I can earn (as a software-writing small business guy doing extensive overseas/foreign sales, bringing money into the country!) trying to outbid the Koch Brothers.
I know some gun nuts. I could be a soldier. I cannot be an ‘investor’ in democracy.
Let’s be sure what context we want to do this in, okay?
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
What’s wrong with “BOTH!”
Nuts and Evil !!!
that’s what I’m thinking!
Also:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Aren’t you in charge of your own Godhood? Because I am of mine!
Have a nice weekend!