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Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

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Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

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You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Same Crap, Different Day

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Same Crap, Different Day

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… And that’s a *good* thing, right, guys? The Timesmen give themselves full credit for their refreshing honesty!

Notes from the paper of record in the company town whose monopoly interest is national politics:

Reader Interactions

54Comments

  1. 1.

    debbie

    There was a lot of tweeting last night that the debt the ceiling needs to be raised for is the debt incurred by the previous administration. If this is true, why isn’t that more widely acknowledged?

  2. 2.

    Nicole

    The party instituting the shutdown always gets blamed for it.  The GOP has never, to my memory, benefitted from shutting down the gov’t.  What’s the saying about insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

    Oh wait; we’re talking about the GOP.  Of course they would do this.

  3. 3.

    dr. bloor

    Breaking News: Senate Republicans blocked a bill to avert a government shutdown and a debt default in an effort to undercut President Biden and Democrats.

    The fact that FTFNYT is framing it like this rather than a demonstration of fiscal discipline on the part of Republicans is nothing less than a miracle.

  4. 4.

    dr. bloor

    @debbie: ​
     
    This horse was beaten to death, resurrected, and then beaten to death a second time during the Obama administration. It’s one of those things you “understand” and acknowledge only if it’s politically advantageous and/or is likely to increase your click rate.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    and then had to be passed on a party-line vote anyway

    You can thank Massachusetts voters for that.

    ETA: actually, it would have been party line anyway.  But it would have been a better bill if we weren’t hamstrung by Scott Brown’s election.

  7. 7.

    MomSense

    Can you just let us live? FFS Republicans we just want to live our lives. It’s apparently too much to ask that we benefit from a modern society.

    This is no way to run a superpower.

  9. 9.

    MomSense

    @Baud:

    It really wasn’t going to be a better bill.  Going into the fight for the ACA we knew that the version we would get would be the one passed by the Senate Finance Committee.  Same as it ever was.  See Social security.

  11. 11.

    Baud

    @MomSense:

    Well, it would never have been single payer.  But remember they used reconciliation to improve the Senate bill. It would have been better to do that in conference committee, but that wasn’t an option after Brown won.

  14. 14.

    Spanky

    @dr. bloor:

    The fact that FTFNYT is framing it like this rather than a demonstration of fiscal discipline on the part of Republicans is nothing less than a miracle.

    Nope. Our billionaire class made a few phone calls.

  15. 15.

    MomSense

    @debbie:

    I think what is really happening is that big Republican donors are going to swoop in and buy a ton of stock cheap after the market has a significant drop because of the debt ceiling shenanigans.  They are probably shorting a bunch of stock now.  They are going to make beaucoup bucks off of this and be very grateful and generous with their donations to Republicans.

  16. 16.

    MomSense

    @Baud:

    I can tell you that we did not have Democratic votes for the things that would have made it better. As it was Snowe was pushing Baucus, Nelson, etc for a public option to no avail.

  18. 18.

    Kay

    As I explained back in 2018, gifts from family don’t have to be reported on federal judicial disclosure forms, and Kavanaugh’s family had deep pockets. He’s the only child of a “swamp creature,” Ed Kavanaugh, a longtime lobbyist for the cosmetics industry who spent his career schmoozing with Beltway insiders to fend off health and safety regulations and dueling with activists who wanted to ban cosmetic testing on animals. When the elder Kavanaugh retired in 2005, his compensation package that year from the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association totaled $13 million, according to the nonprofit group’s IRS filing.

    It’s kind of funny that the Kavanaugh mystery about how he seems to live way beyond his means is not GOP donors but instead that his rich parents just give him lots and lots of money.
    No wonder he won’t admit it. He’d rather people ask him about gambling than reveal that he’s been living off his parents his entire adult life.

  19. 19.

    Kay

    Although I guess Kavanaugh’s parents are “GOP donors”, in addition to being his mom and dad.

    So technically true.

  21. 21.

    Ocotillo

    Ugh, if we were really rigging elections you would think someone would have had the foresight to also rig the Senate races so we wouldn’t have to deal with these Democratic show ponies.  Obama had Lieberman and Ben Nelson to deal with and now we got the insufferable Simena and Manchin.

    Any Oregeon Juicers know what is going on with redistricting in your state?  On the outside looking in, it seems the Reps are not allowing a quorum like the Dems did in Texas but unlike Texas, it looks like they may be successful?

  26. 26.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Nicole:

    The party instituting the shutdown always gets blamed for it.  The GOP has never, to my memory, benefitted from shutting down the gov’t.  What’s the saying about insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

    When have they paid a price for it, though?  For one thing, they’re smart enough to shut down the government when the next election’s a long way off, and other crises and scandals will push a shutdown way to the back of voters’ minds by the time the election rolls around.

    Right now, the next election’s over a year away.  In January 2019, it was almost two years away, and Dems were surprisingly weak down-ballot in 2020.  In October 2013, it was over a year away, and we freakin’ got crushed in 2014.

    So they get the best of both worlds: they get to fuck things up, and they pay no price.  If I were playing the black pieces, I’d keep using that gambit too.

  27. 27.

    snoey

    @Kay: 
    Thought it was clear during the hearings that his parents had bailed him out.
    The question is whether “baseball tickets” explains how he got into that big a hole.

  28. 28.

    John S.

    @rikyrah:

    Impossible! Meghan McCain (did you know her daddy was Maverick Arizona Senator John McCain?) told Chuck Todd that the majority of Americans were against this spending, and he didn’t push back, so she must be right!

  31. 31.

    Kay

    @snoey:

    I would prefer a problem gambler on the court to Kavanaugh, with his too-clever ommissions and dishonesty and the huge chip he has on his shoulder, despite his being handed everything he seethes with resentment. A problem gambler at least would be sort of interesting.

  32. 32.

    snoey

    @Kay:

    Kavanaugh’s issues are worse than gambling, if that caused the debts, but if it can take him down …

    OTOH Paul Cellucci was a problem gambler and boring as hell.

  33. 33.

    Soprano2

    Here’s what’s so dumb, and is something the press never points out – Republicans could have allowed the bill with the debt ceiling to pass with just Democratic votes. It wasn’t necessary to filibuster the bill in order for that to happen. Not one member of the press points this out – it’s all “the bill failed because it required 60 votes”, without saying why it required 60 votes.

  36. 36.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: despite his being handed everything he seethes with resentment.

    I actually think being handed everything might be part of the reason he feels so much resentment. He knows he’s not self-made, but is instead begin supported by his parents, and it makes him feel humiliated. This causes him to resent others who are self-made, liked the Clintons and the Obama’s. You can say what you want about them, but you can’t say they were born into wealth and succeeded because of it. People like Kavanaugh know the truth about themselves, and I think they hate themselves for it.

  37. 37.

    Geminid

    @rikyrah: The bipartisan infrastructure bill is popular and needed. Republicans want to see it scuttled because it will work. The long term investments will provide good-paying jobs and economic growth.

    Republicans want to hamstring the Biden presidency with austerity. They tried this with President Obama and were successful, more or less. The potential default Republicans are risking would accompish the same goal. They fear a strong economy that would put wind in Democratic sails in 2022 and 2024.

  38. 38.

    WereBear

    @Soprano2:

    People like Kavanaugh know the truth about themselves, and I think they hate themselves for it.

     
    True! And I expand some form of this to all MAGAts. Should have one of those Intel stickers saying POWERED BY SEETHING RESENTMENT

  40. 40.

    Geminid

    @Ocotillo: Because he knows that large majorities of Virginians favor gun safety laws, Republican Governor candidate Glenn Youngkin opted to forgo the NRA’s endorsement and did not return their gun policy questionnaire. He hopes he can reassure his base with coded language while not alienating suburban voters who do not want gun safety laws rolled back.

    But, “Shades of Claire McCaskell!” as a Politico Playbook writer put it this morning: a Democrat-aligned PAC is running ads in rural Southwest Virginia decrying Youngkin’s softness on gun rights. I wonder how this messaging would affect people like your brother, who I recall you saying was alarmed by Governor Northam’s push for gun safety legislation a couple years ago.

  41. 41.

    dave319

    @Soprano2: “The American political press: Failing since 1980.” There was a great book, “On Bended Knee”, about the Fourth Estate’s absolute collapse and capitulation before the White House’s amazing lying and power-stealing juggernaut of the day. It’s plain to see, even from the vantage point of 40 years ago, which side “The Librul Media” was throwing their lot in with. The cheaters who win. Not the losers who try to govern, nor the citizens who want their  government to work well for them.

    I recall Senator Sanders on a chatauqua road tour with John Nichols of The Nation and Robert McChesney of the LA Times, warning about the dangerous corporate consolidation of media. This was in 2002, two decades ago. Not included in the presentation, deliberately, was Fox News: Sanders, Nichols, and McChesney all had, in the forefront of their minds, the Great Clinton Penis Chase of the late 90s, fostered, fomented, and flogged with boundless enthusiasm by such mainstream voice actors as David Broder and Cokie Roberts. This was the culmination of the obsequious caving to the GOP, the throughline erasing Reagan’s obvious dementia, Iran Contra, the stock market crash of 1987, the obliteration of corporate taxes and the body blow of forcing FICA to be carried mainly by wage-earners as a result the Tax Reform Act of 1984. Character assassination of a sitting president was the biggest burnt offering the press had offered the GOP to date.

  42. 42.

    narya

    The FYNYT headline is an improvement, but now add: Republicans want to shut down the government rather than pay for the tax cut for the wealthy that they rammed through.

  43. 43.

    sab

    @WereBear: Wow. Yes. That advice has aged well. I had a seious boyfriend dump me when I wouldn’t get rid of my young dogs, and I have never looked back. I had one of them for the next 12 years, loyal and loving throughout on both sides.

    My husband’s ex made him get rid of his cats. Then she put down every dog at the first sign of illness without even letting the kids say goodbye. The marriage broke up when she wanted to return their adopted daughter to county social services. A couple of years later she sent the remaining birth kids to live with us. For control freaks you can never give up enough. They will always want more.

    We almost to our 20th anniversary with a house full of cats and a couple of dogs.

  46. 46.

    PPCLI

    Since nobody’s commented on the Hannity bit in the OP, I’ll take the opportunity:

    Hannity:
    Here in the U.S., where we let in more immigrants than anywhere else on Earth, we don’t ask for a penny

    As a former holder of many different visas including decades on a green card before undergoing the (expensive and long) process of becoming a citizen, I can reassure Sean Hannity that immigrants have to give the government an astonishing amount of money in fees, every year before attaining citizenship. (And, of course, none of those fees are refunded if citizenship is not granted.)

    American citizenship is very very expensive.

  48. 48.

    Geminid

    @rikyrah: My local Greene County, Virginia high school team was routed by the neighboring Madison County “Mountaineers” two weekends ago. Afterwards, a group of Madison players put out a celebration on social media that contained racist language. The Madison High School principal made a public apology to the Greene County community, and the state’s high school league authority ruled that Madison’s next game would not be played, but instead forfeited.

    Forfeiture of one game is not that heavy a penalty, but I think it will motivate coaches around the state to suppress such vile behavior.

  50. 50.

    TeezySkeezy

    @Nicole: They lose short term approval, gain long term in the sense of keeping everything shitty and dysfunctional to discredit government, as is their goal.

  51. 51.

    J R in WV

    The guy who wants his girlfriend to give up her cat(s) is a seriously dangerous control freak. She should run away immediately.

    @sab: 

    My husband’s ex made him get rid of his cats. Then she put down every dog at the first sign of illness without even letting the kids say goodbye. The marriage broke up when she wanted to return their adopted daughter to county social services. A couple of years later she sent the remaining birth kids to live with us. For control freaks you can never give up enough.

    This comment from sab is a perfect summary of how control works out. Got rid of the cats (almost certainly killed them for fun) got rid of the dogs by having them killed, WANTED TO RETURN AN ADOPTED CHILD, like a purse she didn’t care for!! This person is plain old evil~!!~

    The boyfriend who wants his girlfriend to get rid of her cats is exactly the same personality type, he will force that woman to get rid of (aka KILL) everything she loves to prove how much she loves him, she needs to get rid of the boyfriend, but first change out all your locks, to every door, to the car, to the gym locker. The very next day have the breakup meeting, in public with witnesses (like a lawyer) and a video camera.

    Take no chances, this “boyfriend” is a potential very bad actor — never trust someone with no empathy, it’s an important part of humanity, without it one can slip into sociopathy in an instant!

  52. 52.

    J R in WV

    @PPCLI:

    Hannity:
    Here in the U.S., where we let in more immigrants than anywhere else on Earth, we don’t ask for a penny

    Of course, one of the best things about Hannity having his own TV show is that his pig ignorance is on display every day, and immortalized forever. I was born and raised here, and I know how much work and money my co-workers from abroad had to put in to their long sought American citizenship.

  53. 53.

    evodevo

    @Nelle: yes, yes they do, and it was  14k/yr when the debts were paid off, supposedly in 2017….so, how was he able to pay off what were reported as 150k in debts by parents who were only able to gift him 14k that year without reporting it?

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