by liberal japonicus
This may be a really really bad idea, but here goes.
In the film Philadelphia, one of the lines is 'explain it to me like I'm a four year old'. Well, my jhs daughter asked last night why they are shutting down the government. Imagine, if you will, a bright, bilingual jhs student with absolute minimal exposure to the MSM. I'm not sure if this corresponds precisely to what she has been getting, but this Japan Times article (from the WashPo) seems to get at the overseas sense of what is going on.
Please spare me the exegesis of the other articles in the Post about the shutdown, I assume that because the JT editor chose this as the piece, it roughly stands for the opinion here. Also bear in mind that this sort of story is not only something that seems to appear only once every two or three days, but is also below stories titled "U.S., Japan to update defense rules in 2014" and "Kerry, Hagel visit Chidorigafuchi to diminish Yasukuni". My own take is that it is like the embarassing couple in the restaurant having an argument over various household decisions where everyone else in the restaurant looks down at the soup and pretends it doesn't exist.
So your mission, if you decide to accept it, is to craft an explanation that could be understood by my daughter, with the much more strictly drawn lines that would be associated with a father who is not planning on letting the apple of his eye get married until she is in her late 30's (I keeeed, I keeeeeeed!) If you are able to do this, the blog will probably self-destruct. Have at it.
Several years ago, one party in America passed a major law which was extremely unpopular with the other party. They barely got it through the lower chamber of the legislature, getting no votes of the opposing party, and, even applying great pressure, losing many votes from members of their own party.
They then lost control of that lower chamber, in part because of the passage of this law. Because of this, if it were ever put up to a vote again, everyone knows it could never be reenacted.
The members of the opposition party, knowing that the best chance they have to repeal this law is before it fully takes effect, are attempting to force it’s suspension by refusing to fund it. The party that passed it insists that either it gets funded, or the entire government must shut down.
So far they have been successful in forcing a government shutdown, and are currently arranging things to hurt people as much as possible during it, in the hope that the party that keeps passing bills to restart the government will take the blame. They may succeed in this because almost everybody running the news media in America is a member of their party, so most news outlets only carry their version of what is going on.
Rules clarification:
Shouldn’t the person explaining things to the 4-year old be at least four years old themselves?
I’ll have a shot at it:
Well, the Republicans in Congress don’t want one of the most important parts of the Affordable Care Act to be implemented, and, since they can’t stop it through normal legislative processes, they decided “shut the government down”, which means to shut down many, but not all, government services.
So she asks why the ACA is so bad as to merit such act. My response is that motives are always hard to identify, but my guess is that mostly it’s a matter of pridefulness. The Republicans have been lying for years about how the ACA is the end of the world, and now the Act is under way and the world will not end and their lies will be exposed. So they either have to see themselves as liars or they have to act like the world really is about to end and they are the heroes making a last ditch effort to save it.
What does the ACA do? Among other things, makes private insurance available at affordable rates for people who are working but can’t afford insurance.
So why are they against that? Why did they lie about it?
That also is a matter of guessing motives. Some of them are sincere believers in the Republican core principle that the power and resources of the federal government should only be used to serve Republicans: farm price supports, porkbarrel money for the military industrial complex, subsidies for profitable businesses that donate to the Republican party and so on. Since the people who will benefit from the ACA insurance exchanges are mostly the working poor, not the Republican demographic, the party is philosophically opposed to a government program that addresses their needs.
Oh. Why are they so mean and dishonest and selfish?
Oddly many of them claim to be Christians, even calling themsleves “pro-life”. I think one should always be wary of people who lack a capacity for doubting themselves. Everyone is mean and dishonest and selfish at one time or the other, but when people become to much in love with an image of themselves as defenders of a religion or an ideology or too in love with seeing themselves on TV, they lose the ability to correct themselves when they do something they ought to be ashamed of.
lol, one sides doesn’t want the other side to win. and will do whatever it takes to stop the other side. anything, destroying everyone and everything in the process.
one side says either do what i want, or you will get it. and i will shoot the hostages/American People/ if you don’t do what i want, one side says.
that’s about it. might makes right or My way or the Highway”. meanwhile back at the farm, the gunshots are hitting everybody.
and to hear some people say this is the best thing that could happen doesn’t have a hostage being terrorized in this matter. what world do these people live in?
and sometimes they kill the hostages.
I tried it in words:
Think of governing the country as a big game played by two teams, the donkeys and the elephants. The game has rules, and like any game, can only go on as long as everyone follows the rules.
While you were stil a little baby, a lot of donkeys and a few elephants scored a goal. This made many of the elephants very unhappy, and the unhappiest elephants have now taken the ball and won’t let anyone else have it. The game has stopped. The unhappiest elephants say they won’t give the ball back unless everyone ignores the rules and agrees to “take back” the goal.
So everyone can see that the game is over and is going home, which leaves the unhappiest elephants with no one to play with. This makes the unhappiest elephants even unhappier, and they’ve found some matches and sticks, and are telling everyone who will listen that they plan to set the ball on fire.
But this is better
Now, if the child were a football-loving teenager, you could give them this bit of fictional sports reporting:
———–
“Pittsburgh refuses to play, says NFL acting in bad faith”
In a press conference today, the Steelers announced a move that many long time NFL observers called “stunning” and “unprecedented”. The Steelers announced that, unless the NFL overturns the result of last Sunday’s game against the Vikings, the Steelers will not show up for their game next week against the New York Jets on October 13th.
In response to questions from reporters, Coach Mike Tomlin offered this comment:
“Well, clearly, the Steelers and their fans weren’t happy at all with the results of the contest in London. The Steelers and their fans are really used to getting their way. After much thought and consideration of input from our fans, the organization decided that instead of changing our ways in any manner whatsoever, we would simply go straight to the NFL front office. So we called the NFL and asked them to change the results of last week’s game. Given the way the NFL acted – it actually took several calls because the NFL front office could not stop laughing at the first few – it became clear to the Steeler organization that the NFL front office was acting in bad faith and didn’t want to negotiate. So we felt the need to take things into our own hands”. Many Steeler fans cheered.
When asked what it would take to get the Steelers back on the field, Coach Tomlin said that the Steelers would “settle for nothing less than the NFL declaring a record of 12-4 for the Steelers” – regardless of the results on the field or what other people think.
In related news, Randolph and Mortimer Duke are still really pissed that the commodity markets refuse to “turn the machines back on”.
sometimes people are sore losers.
i also just want to say that brett’s bizzaro world reading of current events is starting to get under my skin.
just for the record.
but your daughter doesn’t need to know any of that.
Be careful who she asks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr4WxEQHiCE
I’d counsel against asking Michelle Bachmann how things have taken such a dreadful turn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn0iPYnv-x4
Whatever you do, avoid letting the poor child be exposed to Ted Cruz’s narrative:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uSz0mEtEsQ
russell: i also just want to say that brett’s bizzaro world reading of current events is starting to get under my skin.
Just think of him being on the left in here.
Brett simply finds goals made by the other side, following the rules, to be so disappointing that he can’t accept that they’re legitimate, even if a Republican-dominated Supreme Court says they’re valid.
So, it seems obvious to him that there must be something about the other side’s goals that makes them not really count — not like goals scored by his side, which always seem to him to be legitimate, whether his side follows the rules
or
not
In short, even though he’s a good person, he’s often a bad sport, especially about things that matter deeply to him. Nearly everyone struggles with these same feelings. Those of us who like Brett should try to learn from him what we might look like to the other team when it’s our turn to be disappointed.
And some day, it will be our turn to be disappointed.
see, this is really starting to piss me off. i feel obliged to make a reply.
LJ, pardon the threadjack, and your daughter need not be involved in any of this.
Several years ago, one party in America passed a major law which was extremely unpopular with the other party.
Life’s like that. That’s why there are parties.
They barely got it through the lower chamber of the legislature, getting no votes of the opposing party, and, even applying great pressure, losing many votes from members of their own party.
And yet, it passed.
Did we hear objections from the right over every freaking law that passed on a strict party line vote during the years when (R)’s held a majority?
Was there an outcry, demanding that the laws be overthrown or unfunded, because there was insufficient (D) support?
Did Mr. Brett Bellmore wax eloquent, lamenting that laws that did not receive at least some bipartisan support not be funded, even if that meant that the government itself be shut down?
I have no memory of any such thing. Perhaps my memory has simply faded.
They then lost control of that lower chamber, in part because of the passage of this law. Because of this, if it were ever put up to a vote again, everyone knows it could never be reenacted.
How many attempts were made to repeal it? I’ll grant you less than 42. How many?
Over how many months and years were those attempts made? Were any of them attempted while the (R)’s held a majority in the lower house?
Did any of those attempts succeed? If not, why not?
If what you have said is true, why has every attempt to repeal the law failed?
Explain, or stand down.
The members of the opposition party, knowing that the best chance they have to repeal this law is before it fully takes effect, are attempting to force it’s suspension by refusing to fund it.
As is their prerogative.
And, to succeed, they must in fact prevail not just in the lower house, but in both houses.
They have failed to do so.
A for effort, though.
The party that passed it insists that either it gets funded, or the entire government must shut down.
And this is where I invite you to kiss my hind quarters.
It’s a freaking lie, and it’s a cheap and shameless attempt to shift the blame for the shutdown from where it rightfully belongs, which is on the shoulders of the tea party (R)’s in the lower House.
You lie. Knock it off. Make whatever case you like, but don’t f**king lie.
The tea partiers created this situation. Nobody but them wanted it. It is theirs, it is their creation and their legacy to the rest of us. They own it.
They want to run away from it, because — surprise! — it’s unpopular, and they are pack of shameless gutless spineless charlatans and cowards, but in its cynicism, its irresponsibility, and its disregard for any point of view other than their own it bears their DNA and their likeness.
They cannot escape it.
It is theirs. It is their chosen tactic to get their way. Nobody but them and their so-called base wants it, so they want to pin it on somebody else. But it’s theirs.
F**k them, and I’ll extend that verb to anyone who tries to make this mess anybody’s but theirs.
It is theirs. Nobody asked for it but them.
And some day, it will be our turn to be disappointed.
Dude, I’ve been disappointed for about 40 freaking years. I’ve been consistently horrified on an almost daily basis for at least 30.
But I don’t make shit up.
Have a Tea Party functionary sit down with her over strudel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnENQVoi-oo
Maybe Brett is best for this job:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X20XIg38GcE
Rep. Neugebauer, in the news today, can probably be counted on for some mansplaining to the young lady:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32C0eKRQVt8
After Citizens United, the corporations might be able to shut Archie Bunker up, were he alive today to splain de sitiation to da yout oveh heah:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fqCS7Y_kME
I really think we should consider the moral values of people who oppose a program to provide access to health insurance for other people.
It isn’t just any old law.
Laura, nice try but too much stuff a 4 year old would not grasp. E.g., it would probably not know/understand the word insurance without an extra explanation (at that age I’d even put ‘Christian’ on the not-selfexplanatory words).
—
My try:
You may think, if you are sick, you just go to the doctor and he will help you get healthy again. But you also have to pay for it, and the sicker you are, the more you have to pay. And sometimes people get so sick for so long that they do not have enough money to pay. If they are sick, they cannot work, get no money and so cannot pay the doctor to make them healthy again. And many that cannot pay anymore die. That’s bad enough but also every year one has to pay more for the same thing the doctor does and many people get paid less and less for their work too, so ore and more people cannot pay the doctor and die. So, someone got an idea. If just 1 in a 100 gets sick and no one knows in advance then everyone could put a bit of money in a common pot every month and when one of them gets sick the doctor gets paid with that money. Poeple that have much money would put in a little more, those that have little would put in less and those that, without having done something wrong, have nothing, would have their part paid by the others. A few guys that are good in math would watch over the money, talk with the doctors over the price and as a thank-you get a share of the money. Now that would be nice but there are people that do not like the idea at all. Maybe they are healthy and think ‘I will never get sick. I better keep my money for something else and I do not want to share because many just claim to be sick to get at my money’. Others say ‘I have much money and can pay the doctor however expensive it gets. If others can’t, it’s their own fault and why should I care?’. And many of those that were supposed to take care of the money take a larger and larger share for themselves, so less and less is available to pay the doctor. And the at the same time they told the doctor that he should not help those not putting money in the pot or demand much more from them for the help. They would also try to find out who would get sick more often than others. From those they demand more money or refuse to let them join the club in the first place. And often they would find an excuse not to pay the doctor for those that did put money in the pot claiming that it was too expensive. So, selfishness destroyed what semmed to be a good idea and many suffered and died or became poor because all their money had to be spent to pay the doctor and the guys that were supposed to take care of it.
Then people said: Congress has to do something. They can force the guys to use the money for what is was paid in the first place and not take most of it for themselves. They can stop them from having people denied help because they did not let them in. Also those that have paid should get the care the were promised.
And while we are at it, it can’t be that some do not join but still demand to get help for free the moment they get sick, although it was not their poverty that kept them out but their unwillingness to pay. If we did that, all the healthy would stay out and the whole idea from the start (everyone pays a small part, so the few sick get help without getting ruined) does not work anymore (because only the sick would be in and then the money would be too little for all).
Many in Congress thought that there would be some good solutions, for example:
1) the state does the caretaking for the money and will pay it with taxes, so everyone is in, and no money is taken out for profit. Taxes will be a bit higher than before but you do not have to pay the bad guys anoore that then maby estill will not let you go to the doctor.
2) The state will become one of the caretakers and people can choose between the old guys (we call them private insurers) and the state. That way the old guys cannot cheat you so easily because when they take too much from you, you can say ‘No. I will take the better offer from the state, if you don’t stop to rob me.’.
Most wealthy countries in the world do it that way, some for more than a century now and it seems to work. Only we do not and pay about twice as much per person and get often worse results (unless you are very rich).
But the private insurers have lots of money and give much of it to certain people in Congress telling them: “Keep it the way it is now because we make money from it and give you a share. If you vote for a change then we will NOT give you money anymore and pay someone else to get your seat in Congress. Then you have no money and lose the job people envy you for.” And other rich people that think that the poor do not deserve help did the same. And there are also many people that think that the state is bad and would be even worse than the private insurers and called their congresspeople telling them to make no changes. For years they debated in Congress and in the end there was what seemed like a solution all should be able to live with.
1) Evyerone has to join, so there are no people that get something for nothing who could at least pay something.
2) Those that were too poor would get help from the state to buy insurance
3)The state would not become an insurer itself because of the mistrust of people
That way the private insurers were happy. They got many more customers and they would not have the state as a rival.
But it was necessary too to keep the insurers from playing their old games so
4)They would have to take everyone and could not kick them out the moment they go sick.
5)They would have to spend most of the money for the care and not as much for themselves as before.
Most insurers did their math and found that they would not be worse off with that or even better because they would get more from the many new customers than they would lose by stopping to cheat.
So it seemed Congress could unite to make it so.
But there were still some problems
1) There are two parties in Congress and when the one party has a success the other will get less votes in the next election but when the one party fails the other will win more votes. So many congresspeople do not like it when the other party has a success. You may say,when they unite both have a success and the voters will like them. But most people think all is done by the president and will believe that it is the president’s party that should get more votes even when the other party helped. But when something fails then people will blame the president and vote for the other party.so the other party thinks that it has nothing to win. So, should one help the people but get nothing for it or block everything and hope that the next president will be of your party (and then you could try to pass the same ideas as your own and reap the reward).
2) One party in Congress (the president’s party) pushes for the idea but many people that vote for the other party HATE the president. So the congresspeople from that party risk to get thrown out in the next election, if their voters believed that they were too friendly to him or even helped him. And the guys that did not like the whole idea still threatened them with not giving them money anymore and telling the voters that their congressguy was bad.
So the talks got very nasty and in the end the president’s party got the idea through only with a small majority and only with votes from their own, none of the other party.
Now the other party had a problem. The money guys and their voters blamed them because they had failed. They tried to win the next election to have their guy as president so he could kill the idea before it could become a success. But they failed again. They tried to have the high judges declare that the whole idea was against the law but again failed. Now there was only one way forward. Failing again would mean that the idea would get tried. Should it work, people would remember that the other party was against it and hate them for it. The voters that hated the president would then also hate them because they did not stop the hated president’s idea. And the money guys would find other people to support. So they had nothing to lose. Their plan now is: We threaten the president. Either he will stop the law (only he can do that now) or they would ruin the whole country by preventing the government from spending any more money or paying the bills for stuff already bought. They have not enough votes to make changes but enough to block the other side from doing anything. They think: The president will rather drop the idea than risk that the whole country gets ruined. He knows that people will remember forever that he was president when that happened and will never vote for his party again (they will not remember who made him do it though).
Unfortunately for them the president thinks that, if he allows the other party to win that way, they will do it again and again and the people will never forgive him for his weakness and for the bad things that he thinks will happen when the other party gets its way. He hopes that when he does not budge, his law will be successful, it will help many people and he will be fondly remembered for it. So, both sides face ruin when the other side wins but the country faces ruin when neither side yields.
I personally hope that the other party sees that the ruin they risk is nothing compared to what the country faces should they not retreat when the president doesn’t. If they step back they can play another day but if they don’t there may be no other day or the people will at least not forgive them for what they have done so soon. Now we have to find a way to persuade them to see it that way even when we can’t change their mind about the insurance thing.
I didn’t pick up on her being four. I was imagining a thirteen year old for some reason.
“Daddy, why is the government shutting down?”
“Well my dearest, as Generalissimo Stalin once asked, “How many divisions does the Pope have?” No, wait a minute here, that’s not right. It has to do with breaking eggs to make omelettes.”
“Eggs?” she asked. “Aren’t those covered by the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1937?”
“Well, yes”, I replied. “But sometimes you have to break the rules to make the rules work. You have to stand up for your principles, make your point, stand tall, stand your ground, and draw lines in the sand. Go all Clint Eastwood on their asses and don’t let the empty chairs push you around.”
“Is that similar to Nietzsche’s concept of the Superman in Thus Spoke Zarathustra?” she wondered.
“Not exactly, my dear. It’s more mundane than that. A political faction, calling themselves conservatives desire to shut the government down in order to save it.”
“Oh come now, daddy. You can’t be serious. If there is no government, we will have anarchism. It is difficult to conceive of conservatives, followers of Eddie Burke and Tommy Hobbes acting like Mike Bakunin. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It rarely does. Have you heard the one about the three little pigs?”
“Not tonight, daddy. I really wrapped up in this latest book from Thomas Pynchon. Do you really think he has pierced the heart of the human condition?”
“I don’t know, my dear,” I pondered. Is John Boehner in it?”
russell skrev:
Dude, I’ve been disappointed for about 40 freaking years. I’ve been consistently horrified on an almost daily basis for at least 30.
Oh, me too. In fact, I cried and wanted to punch someone when Eugene McCarthy didn’t get the nomination (I was sixteen). I had similar feelings in 1980, and again in 2000, and again in 2004, with what I think is somewhat better justification.
BTW, I thought your one-line “explanation to a four-year-old” was far better than any of mine.
If you play Brett’s comment at the top of the thread backwards, you can hear someone saying “Paul is dead”.
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2013/10/07/131007taco_talk_gawande
Brett trotted out his “bare majority” schtick over at RBC, as well. As a service to him, in case he misses it over there, my last reply to him:
Let me add, just in passing, that Dubya’s first tax cut was RAMMED THROUGH, on “reconciliation” no less, with Deadeye Dick casting the tie-breaking 51st vote in the Senate. Libertarians apparently consider all GOP majorities, no matter how meager, to be decently-clothed majorities.
–TP
LJ,
Take a look at this article.
It appears to fit your bill.
And Joel, your tale at 9:04 above is awesome.
“While you were still a little baby, a lot of donkeys and a few elephants scored a goal.”
From Wikipedia: “On December 23, the Senate voted 60–39 to end debate on the bill: a cloture vote to end the filibuster by opponents. The bill then passed by a vote of 60–39 on December 24, 2009, with all Democrats and two independents voting for, and all Republicans voting against (except for Jim Bunning, who did not vote).”
More like some Donkeys, and no Elephants at all.
Actually, she’s 13, I just started off with the riff from Philadelphia (explain it so me like I was a 4 year old)
I was surprised that she asked me, and our experiences are so different that it is really hard for me to figure out what to say, though I will try bobbyp’s suggestion.
I’m sorry, Brett, but there is actually a majority of reps in the House who would vote for a clean budget right now, it’s just that Boehener won’t bring the vote. The real truth is that a *majority of reps* don’t want a shutdown, and yet we still have one.
*That’s* your hostage-taking, right there.
No one wants a shutdown. It’s just that this is the leverage: shutdown or our way.
My cynical side notices that this designed shutdown has got nearly everyone focused on the shutdown. When’s the last time you were thinking about NSA surveillance? Or about Syria? Or about Afghanistan?
There’s people in Washington who are grateful for this distraction.
I also want to note that this shutdown showdown is now baked into our budgetary process. If we have a debt ceiling and and continue to spend far into the red, we are guaranteed to encounter this again. And again.
Maybe someone ought to have done something about this, somehow. There are at least two approaches that might have worked.
I’m sorry in return, but the fact remains that the ACA passed with no Elephant votes at all. It didn’t even get all the Donkey votes.
I’m all for simplifying for a 4 year old, I’ve got one myself, but pretending the ACA got Republican votes isn’t simplifying, it’s falsifying.
As much as I hate to chime in on Brett’s side, he’s correct. Not a single Republican vote on passage in either the House or Senate.
Interesting that it came to the Senate with nearly all of the Republican votes in favor; maybe someone who has been keeping up with the facts has a good explanation for that. My guess would be either a) amendments, or b) racism. Or both!
But it *doesn’t matter* what the history of the Obamacare bill was. It’s *doesn’t matter* how much Republicans dislike it. What *does matter* is playing by the rules, which the House GOP isn’t doing. Or rather, the rules are Calvinball.
I think lj needs to include this:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/the-two-basic-facts-that-should-be-in-every-shutdown-story/280179/
And I think lj also has to say that the program that has roused such unquenchable ire is an attempt to make the US health care system *slightly* more like that found in Japan, Europe, Canada, Australia, and the rest of the “First World”.
I also want to note that this shutdown showdown is now baked into our budgetary process. If we have a debt ceiling and and continue to spend far into the red, we are guaranteed to encounter this again. And again.
I do not see the linkage you allude to. Most “shutdowns” have taken place over budgetary disagreements. Nearly always they were overcome rather quickly, and without a great deal of fanfare. They also had nothing to do with the debt ceiling limit.
“No one wants a shutdown.”
Michelle Bachman wanted it. She’s part of a group within the Republican party that has wanted a shut down for years.
As for the sulking and pouting and temper tantrums over the lack of elephant support: boo-hoo. That’s tow year old thinking. None of the elephants minded winning with just their votes when they had the House and the Senate. To Congressional Republicans fairness means getting their way. But whatever means.
I agree the shut down is a distraction. It’s a distraction from a discussion of the moral values of people who want to deny other people access to health insurance.
I’m sorry in return, but the fact remains that the ACA passed with no Elephant votes at all. It didn’t even get all the Donkey votes.
I’m sure that sucks if you are (R), but that’s the process.
Is the issue here that party line votes don’t count?
Or that bills that receive NO votes from one party don’t count?
If so, how many votes from the party on the losing side of the issue are required before legitimacy is conferred?
Party line votes are the new norm. That’s regrettable, but it’s the reality.
The ACA passed both Houses, has survived numerous attempts to repeal it, and has survived numerous legal challenges on Constitutional grounds, ending with a SCOTUS decision.
That is our process, and the ACA has made it through every conceivable challenge.
I don’t consider the ACA to be a model of perfect legislation, nor do I consider the process by which it came to be law a model for perfect process.
But it passed, and it has survived, over a period of years, as many challenges as any other law I can think of in a generation or more.
But in any case, you CANNOT BRING THE NORMAL OPERATION OF GOVERNMENT TO A HALT WHEN YOU LOSE AN ARGUMENT. If you do that, everything breaks. And we don’t want to go there.
If you want a different outcome, you need more votes. If you can’t get the votes, then there’s a message there for you. A pretty clear one, at that.
On a personal note, I’ll say that it pisses me the hell off that, after living through Nixon, Reagan, Bush I, significant parts of Clinton, Bush II, and significant parts of Obama, folks like me are expected to understand and accept that folks like the Tea Partiers simply CANNOT ACCEPT an outcome of the legislative process.
We’ve eaten more crap sandwiches than you can even imagine.
So, on a personal note, my message to the tea partiers of the world is suck it up and try harder next time.
It will take years to roll the ACA out, and there will be about a million adjustments along the way. The opportunity to kill it with a thousand cuts still lies before you.
If that doesn’t brighten your day, I’m not sure what will.
Do your best and have fun. But you have to bring the votes.
And if you can’t bring the votes, you lose. That’s our way, for good or ill. Accept it gracefully or not, as you will, but you DO NOT GET TO PULL THE PLUG if you don’t get your way.
You’re not the only freaking people living here.
Here’s another way to explain it: My husband buys health insurance for five hundred dollars a month. The rate goes up annually.
After Washington set up the exchanges e got a notice that his insurance cost was going to drop by forty dollars a month. When the exchange opened for business he called in to get some quotes. He can get insurance that is the equivalent of his current coverage for one hundred and forty dollars a month less.
It isn’t hard to get to the exchanges here. And he even got a call back from a real person to our house!
A friend of mine who has a pre-existing condition will now qualify for expanded Medicaid. Another friend who is healthy but low income will qualify for insurance. She’s checking out the exchanges by way of the library computer because she lives in the woods in a trailer and has no electricity.
The employees at the gas station where I usually gas up can get insurance now. The maintenance staff my gated community employs can get insurance now.
This is a huge relief to people who have been getting by paycheck to paycheck worried that a health bill will destroy their precarious equilibrium.
This is what the fuss is all about. It isn’t about elephants sulking because the law passed without their votes. It’s about the moral values of people who think it is a bad thing for their neighbors to have affordable health insurance.
“None of the elephants minded winning with just their votes when they had the House and the Senate.”
They also believe they won’t need opposition votes in the future.
Too bad their needs won’t be met ever again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5fr67YUif4
Stewart used a portion of the clip on his show last night.
As much as I hate to chime in on Brett’s side, he’s correct. Not a single Republican vote on passage in either the House or Senate.
Gosh! You don’t supposed the GOP’s own, openly and repeatedly stated vow to ensure the failure of the Obama Administration had anything to do with that, do you? Or the screaming claques of Tea Partiers who showed up at every townhall meeting where the ACA was going to be discussed?
Never mind. Looking back on recent history, I remember another major initiative by a Democratic President that passed without a single GOP vote: the 1993 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act.
It’s greatly entertaining to go and check on the apocalyptic rhetoric the GOP used to justify its monolithic opposition to that one. The names are different, but not the claims: the tax hike will kill jobs! cause a recession! worsen the recession we’re in! Newt Gingrich (then-house Speaker) allowed as how the job-killing, recession-causing, civlization-ending tax hike “might take 1 1/2 to 2 years” to make the rivers run red with blood, but assured everyone it would happen!
So (you ask) what did happen?
Just the longest sustained period of economic growth in the nation’s history, with 23 million jobs created.
GOP prognostications have a 0% accuracy rate. Their unity in opposition only means they’re monolithically wrong. Reliably, monolithically, wrong.
Mind you, if Obamacare is anywhere as successful as the 1993 Budget Omnibus Act, we’ll see the same thing happen: the GOP will try to take credit for it, like they try to take credit for the prosperity of the Clinton Era.
“I’m sorry in return, but the fact remains that the ACA passed with no Elephant votes at all. It didn’t even get all the Donkey votes.”
And yet, on of the things arguments the Supreme Court majority of conservatives used to invalidate part of the VRA was that the VRA was re-authorized with BIPARTISAN NEAR-UNANIMITY.
Funny, how these criteria seem to strongly resemble “pulling stuff out of their butt” in support of a pre-determined conclusion.
Maybe there is a face-saving way out for the Republicans: continue to claim that Obamacare is the end of the world, but claim credit for Kentuckycare or what ever the manifestation of Obamacare is in red states. That’s what they did with the stimulus: said they opposed it, voted for it, and claimed credit for any projects in their districts while continuing to claim they opposed it. Ryan pulled that off without a peep from his base.
One of the advantages of having a base that will believe anything provided it’s packaged to trigger hate/fear/and faux victimhood is that the rightwing faux news outlets can be used to tell the base the stories of interest to them, in this case stories of how awful Obamacare is in blue states and how great a job the Republicans have done in administering their own versions in red states.
It won’t matter to the base that they didn’t administer their own versions or that they actively sabotaged. It won’t matter if a successful program like Kentucky’s is in fact Obamacare with a local name. Facts don’t influence the base, never have.
Republican politicians have never minded lies in the past so I don’t why they can’t just lie their way out of this, too.
“Is the issue here that party line votes don’t count?”
No, the issue was just that the story wasn’t true. It was a simple factual matter: The ACA got no ‘Elephant’ votes, and Joel’s version of events falsified that.
As I say, I’m all for simplifying things for children, but that wasn’t simplification, it was just false. Unambiguously so, and not as a matter of connotation or interpretation. Just flat out false.
The ACA got no ‘Elephant’ votes, and Joel’s version of events falsified that.
aha!
thanks for the clarification, I missed that you were responding to joel.
sorry for the error (on my part).
The ACA got no ‘Elephant’ votes, and Joel’s version of events falsified that.
So, if you change the story to get that one factual matter right, does it really affect the narrative? This is even sillier than the parks story.
To me, the real crux of where the blame lies for the shutdown is that they won’t allow a vote on a clean resolution. That’s where the “Obama Shutdown,” as seen on Sean Hannity’s show (via The Daily Show – otherwise, I would never have seen it), goes off the rails.
The RW version of the story, which Brett keeps repeating, would only maybe make sense if a clean resolution was actually voted on and failed. I mean, you’d think there was just no way out of this thing – as though the House simply had no recourse because they couldn’t pass a clean resolution – the way Brett tells the story.
Sometimes I don’t know why anyone, including me, bothers responding to this stupid crap. Weakness, I guess.
Saying this
Think of governing the country as a big game played by two teams, the donkeys and the elephants. The game has rules, and like any game, can only go on as long as everyone follows the rules.
While you were stil a little baby, a lot of donkeys and a few elephants scored a goal. This made many of the elephants very unhappy, and the unhappiest elephants have now taken the ball and won’t let anyone else have it. The game has stopped. The unhappiest elephants say they won’t give the ball back unless everyone ignores the rules and agrees to “take back” the goal.
So everyone can see that the game is over and is going home, which leaves the unhappiest elephants with no one to play with. This makes the unhappiest elephants even unhappier, and they’ve found some matches and sticks, and are telling everyone who will listen that they plan to set the ball on fire.
is false seems to be stretching the definition of false to its breaking point.
But let’s go with the Brettworld version for a moment. This means that the Republicans, to a man, are all supportive of the shutdown and really don’t give a flip about all the things that are closed because they can’t get their way. Think about that for a moment and you might see why the Count keeps bumping up to that line in the sand around here when he talks about Republican vermin and filth.
Other than the current linkage? You think this is a snowflake, never to be seen again?
You are more optimistic than I am.
Cite, please? Thanks in advance.
Just noting that Brett’s embrasure of facts is, in this case, commendable & accurate. Baby steps.
Post hoc. If your point is that those tax rate increases caused the dotcom bubble to form (and inevitably burst) you’re going to have to do some more work than this. Otherwise I will regard this with approximately the same askance-ness as I regard any other unevidenced ain’t-we-great assertion.
This means that the Republicans, to a man, are all supportive of the shutdown and really don’t give a flip about all the things that are closed because they can’t get their way.
Likely not so.
As hairshirt notes, we would discover the fact of the matter in a New York minute if the House would vote on a clean continuing resolution.
And even Hastert is now saying there is no Hastert rule. Not that any such rule prevents calling a vote in the first place.
“We’re very excited,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). “It’s exactly what we wanted, and we got it.”
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-09-28/politics/42481675_1_house-republicans-shutdown-conservative-members
Not mentioned: what “It” is.
Here’s what she said, elsewhere:
My bold.
My point: she is not explicitly saying she wants the government shut down. She’s saying that she is happy the Republicans have acquired themselves, at long last, a lever sufficient to the task they’ve set out on.
Which you might condemn, and probably have, and might also say amounts to the same thing.
to me, the bottom line here is that the folks who don’t want the ACA have, repeatedly, failed to muster the votes to 86 it.
they talk about how the majority of americans don’t want it. but the way that is demonstrated in our particular polity is that your reps vote on it.
if you have the votes, you win the day. donkey, elephant, zebra, orangutan, doesn’t matter. add them up, if you have more than the other side, you win. if you don’t, you don’t.
a minority finding a lever adequate to preventing the majority will from becoming law is an interesting thing, and i’m sure they’re delighted to have discovered it, but that doesn’t come close to “winning (a) dialogue on a national level”.
it’s not even a dialogue.
Michelle Bachmann:
http://www.policymic.com/articles/66021/government-shutdown-8-people-who-are-actually-happy-about-it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTl2Rgtluw4
I see cleek is ahead of me here.
Asking for evidence that Michelle Bachmann wanted and is ecstatic, and testifies that her “colleagues” are equally so, about anything that damages government, and hurts Federal employees, private contractors and social service programs is like hunting around for evidence of my use of the word “vermin”.
But let’s pause these proceedings and ask for a continuance while truckloads of evidence are carted into chambers and examined by the Judge to determine if, in fact, potatoes contain huge amounts of potassium, the sun, it rises in the East, and Michelle Bachmann is atop the cheerleader pyramid in the Sadist’s Glee Club.
Smiley icon and cripes.
If your point is that those tax rate increases caused the dotcom bubble to form (and inevitably burst) you’re going to have to do some more work than this.
I think the point was simply that Republican predictions were wrong. There was no exacerbation of the recession. Rather, the opposite occurred.
The point isn’t a matter of evidence of causation of a particular effect, but a matter not just of a lack of evidence of causation of the opposite effect, but evidence against causation of the opposite effect.
Oh, she’s the “it” girl.
‘Not mentioned: what “It” is.’
Could Jesurgislac please show up and testify to the absolutely classic Slartiness of that statement.
Other than the current linkage? You think this is a snowflake, never to be seen again?
I would say that depends. There have been numerous “shutdowns” since the Carter Administration (there’s some really interesting history there). I would say this one is rather unique, given the policy dimension that was put into play by the GOP. Now one could argue that with increasing political polarization you will see more showdowns like this. That is reasonable, but that trend is not something driven by the budgetary process. That legislative process is pretty much unchanged.
Perhaps I was not clear. The debt ceiling limit is not a part of this impasse. That’s next week’s crisis I hear. That is the linkage I said I did not see. As for being in the red, that is generally the case. So it depends on your judgment as to what constitutes “far” and the effects you theorize we will see as a result of going there.
Hope that makes this snowflake more special to you.
Regards,
“There’s people in Washington who are grateful for this distraction.”
Probably some truth to this, but it’s a gift to Obama by the Tea Party types.
See, LJ, that’s why I laugh at this “reality based community” jazz. Nice concept, but when the rubber hits the road, if somebody whose politics you don’t like points out an objective factual error, like, no, there weren’t any Republican votes for the ACA, it gets blown off.
Why can’t you just admit he got that wrong, and move on? But, no, you’ve got to pretend that objectively untrue statements somehow aren’t false.
On the other hand GOPsters complain that Obama is willing to speak with Iran but not with them.
Well, I’d say that says more about them than Obama.
Btw, do we have any claims yet that the whole shutdown ist just a Dem distraction from Benghazi (or the birth certificate)?
I’m sure the failure of the Republicans to predict the dotcom bubble is at least as big as the failure of absolutely everyone else to predict same.
I’m going to chalk this one up to: example that does nothing to negate or support the larger point.
Yes, you are correct. I keep getting these two things confused. Thanks for correcting.
Bigger picture, though: this could just keep happening whenever we need a CR or a raise of the debt ceiling.
It’s completely Slarty to want to know what antecedents of indefinite pronouns are.
Questions of context are deemed important in other situations. I guess it all depends on how convenient (or, if I may be allowed: un-Slarty) it is to ignore said context.
Don’t forget that expansion of NSA surveillance preceded the Obama administration, so there may be some skin in the game, here.
But good point. My cynical side would want to know the tat that goes along with the tit, so to speak.
I’m not sure Walter White really wanted “it”.
He just made “it” up as went along, a series of strategies and sufficient levers to achieve “it”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6CjCEyAJ2s
Aw, heck, maybe Doc Science’s “entertainment” theory and Slart’s “leverage” theory, though seemingly different in context, have merged into perfect it-ness.
I will concede that if Michelle Bachmann was asked what the antecedent of the pronoun “it” is, she would, without disturbing that 1000-mile stare and that million-watt, mirthless grin, ask for a time out and huddle with an aid to ask “What is “it” again?”
I found “it”.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
H. L. Mencken
Brett, speaking of reality, can you agree that if there were a vote on a CR in the House now, that it would pass with some R support and that the shutdown would end?
…like, no, there weren’t any Republican votes for the ACA, it gets blown off.
It appears to me that lj is mistaken about where you are claiming elephant unanimity. He’s talking about who would vote for a CR that included funding for the ACA, whereas you’re talking about who voted for the ACA in 2010. That may well be wherein lies the rub, when the rubber meets the road.
Brett, you were doing pretty well until you got to this:
The party that passed it insists that either it gets funded, or the entire government must shut down.
See, the problem is that the ACA is already fully funded. No further action required. The Continuing Resolution (the “clean” one the Senate keeps sending to the House) contains zero dollars for the ACA.
So the government has been shut down, even though doing so results in no change to the funding, and no halt in the roll-out, of Obamacare. So it’s hard to see how the fault is on the folks who are looking at not making a change, rather than on those who are demanding that one be made.
Yeah, Boehner’s strategy is as dependent on preventing the House from voting on what Democrats prefer, as Reid’s is on keeping the Senate from voting on Republican proposals. That’s why Reid has to ‘fill the tree’, so that nobody in his own caucus has the option of voting for Republican amendments.
Neither of them could win a freely conducted debate and vote.
Paul Waldman had a cogent column on September 27 which explains it well.
http://prospect.org/article/memo-republicans-you-lost-now-deal-it
An excerpt:
Brett, I thank you for the corrections. I was thinking of the bipartisan committee work in the runup, and the way that Obama courted Snow. If ObWi comments had ‘edit’, I’d gladly amend my little story to be a more faithful simile of the actual history.
That would have the advantage of making the story more comprehensible to a four-year-old, who is most likely to be familiar with games in which the teams on opposite sides do not cooperate to score goals, ever, except by accident.
Of course, there’s the disadvantage that the four-year-old would learn less about how governance is different from sports, and can include cooperation and common goals that both sides can celebrate, when both sides are willing.
However, the moral point remains: the Republicans, in a snit over a perfectly valid goal made by the other side, have decided to quit playing by the rules, and are threatening to kick over the board. In the world of sports, inability to accept disappointment in good grace is mere childishness (or hooliganism in adults); if pursued at length in politics it leads to actual shooting wars. We fought a war over nullification; nullification lost. So did 600,000 young men, and those who loved them.
Since you apparently did not follow the link, I’ll remind you of a bit of recent history:
And yet, even after such shenanigans, the Democrats accepted that they were defeated according to the letter of the rules of the game, and kept playing. Medicare Part B is part of the law of the land. We didn’t set the ball on fire.
In full-on tantrum mode, you and your party are not cutting an admirable figure on the world stage (again) and everyone sees it. Why are you not embarassed by your own self-imposed disgace as open and defiant cheaters? What do you think of the four year old who lies redfaced on the supermarket floor writhing and screaming “No no no no no no. I don’t want to.” ?
I can’t resist responding to lj’s original request. And I’m fond enough of Brett’s initial post that I have taken the liberty of plagerizing most of the first 2 1/2 paragraphs from it:
Several years ago, one party in America passed a major law which was extremely unpopular with the other party. They barely got it through the lower chamber of the legislature, getting no votes of the opposing party [even after making dozens of changes that the other party requested].
They then lost control of that lower chamber, in part because of the passage of this law. Because of this, if it were ever put up to a vote again, everyone knows it could never be reenacted by that chamber.
The members of the opposition party, knowing that the best chance they have to repeal this law is before it fully takes effect, are attempting to force its suspension by refusing to fund it. They insist that either it gets defunded, or the entire government must shut down.
So far they have been successful in forcing a government shutdown, and are currently arranging things to hurt people as much as possible during it. Their hope being that the other party will take the blame. At this point, very preliminary evidence suggests that their hopes will be realized only among their existing strong supporters. But for the nation as a whole, they will take the blame.
See, the problem is that the ACA is already fully funded. No further action required. The Continuing Resolution (the “clean” one the Senate keeps sending to the House) contains zero dollars for the ACA.
So this:
“He’s talking about who would vote for a CR that included funding for the ACA…”
Should read:
“He’s talking about who would vote for a CR that didn’t defund the ACA…”
Thanks, bobbyp!
Make that wj, not bobbyp.
The explanation requested for lj’s daughter, given lj’s current living circumstances in Japan which include a private/employer universal health insurance system, including coverage of pre-existing conditions, that sounds remarkably like the mixed private employer/ACA system nascent here ……
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_system_in_Japan
…. would be considerably different if lj and his family lived in this country and they were not able to afford medical insurance and one of his children (God forbid, although the Republican God does not forbid, in fact, it demands, on pain of shutting down the government and defaulting on the debt, that should happen) suffered from a very expensive, life-threatening disease which would at the very least send her family into penury and at some point cause them to pull the plug on treatment (you know how families are just like governments, sitting around the kitchen table deciding tomorrow’s budget priorities).
The ‘splaining might be a little more touch and go.
So — leaving aside Brett, who, after all wields no power — for most of us to ask the Republicans in the House and Senate who voted unanimously against the ACA and now want to gut the program entirely and return to a system of insurance which permits the refusal of insurance for pre-existing conditions and which would leave tens of millions of Americans uninsured, seems not a little like Sharon Tate asking her Manson Family guests: “Chuck, Susan, speaking of reality, would you agree that smearing my family’s blood on the wall, setting aside our murders, would you agree that if there was a vote on whether to proceed with your plan tonight, that many of you might decide to head back to the Ranch?”*
Or perhaps a similar polite, reasonable question to Joe Stalin about the advisability of starving the Ukraine.
It’s very courteous of us to exhibit such forbearance in the face abject murder, but I prefer Russell’s pissed-off comment way upthread.
*Manson might pause, turn down the volume on “Helter-Skelter”, and reply: “Ms Tate, may I call you Sharon, that’s a very well-thought-out question, and by the way, I appreciate that you have not called my family and I “vermin”, as some are wont to do. Now .. I’m sorry, what was the question again, bwaha-ha-ha?
meanwhile….
“called my family and I ..”
Manson’s grammar was murderous, too.
Brett – fail
Countme – good question.
Laura – fail
Bernard – fail
joel – fail; fail; fail
russell – close, & clear – but not reallyexplicative
russell (threadjack) – Way to go !! (But utter fail… and now you have to explain f*ck, too.)
hartmut – no four year old I ever encountered had that long of an attention span.
bobbyp – who’s Stalin ?
bobbyp – no, it doesn’t
…. (lost the will to live)
wj (plagiarising Brett: very close)
Then it came to me: introduce her to Brett (in a strictly supervised environment).
All would be then clear.
“have decided to quit playing by the rules”
See, that’s where we don’t agree: The Republicans ARE playing by the rules. The rules say both chambers have to agree on legislation for it to become law. They do NOT say that one chamber can not use this as leverage to force the other chamber to go along with something it doesn’t want. They don’t say that programs, once enacted, have to be funded. They don’t mandate that you prevail.
The Republicans are playing a hard game, they are taking every advantage of what the rules permit them to do, but what they are NOT doing is violating the rules. Any more than the Democrats are, in amending the Republican CRs to make them ‘clean’. Both sides collaborated in forcing this shutdown, because both sides would rather win than keep the government running.
And the rules permit this. The rules don’t require that anything except debt service be funded, after all.
Since lj mentioned “Philadelphia”;
Remember when employers not only fired folks because of the nature of their disease, but because they didn’t want to carry them on their group health plans, and insurance companies were able to strip coverage from their sick patients.
Well, savage freedom still rings pretty much for the first two items, but the ACA soothes the savage breast by disallowing the third.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPXGawYznno
Both sides collaborated in forcing this shutdown,
complete fncking bullshit.
Fallows almost has it:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/jfk-oswald-differences-lead-to-violence-and-other-great-headlines-of-yesteryear/280294/
– On the one hand, the House could do what a majority of its own members (R and D) clearly want, and that is in keeping with what usually happens through the years, decades, and centuries. Namely, keep the government open without making its very operation conditional on other demands. OR
– On the other, the Senate could accept the House’s bill — which keeps the government open but also undoes Obamacare — even though a majority of its members consider this anathema, it goes against all precedent, and it would force a recently re-elected president to accept the minority-opposition program.
As a matter of politics, people can differ on which of those results they would prefer. But I don’t think many people outside DC journalism would think of calling them equally “reasonable.”
Though I have to mark him down for using ‘anathema’.
I was thinking about this during lunch today, and I have to agree with Brett that they are, in fact, playing by the rules. They’re just digging very deep into rules more reasonable people wouldn’t put into play under these same circumstances. And some of those rules may be rather stupid, since they allow what’s now going on.
Not playing by the rules would be starting a coup or something. Not that I think what they’re doing is right. It’s manipulative, unnecessary and damaging, but not against the rules.
Short of changing the rules, or the other side finding rules to exploit, the solution is going to be political. That political solution is going to hurt the GOP in the end, which, in and of itself, is just fine.
Too bad we can’t avoid the damage in the meantime.
I have to agree with Brett that they are, in fact, playing by the rules. They’re just digging very deep into rules more reasonable people wouldn’t put into play under these same circumstances.
Indeed – they are using the rules to say ‘give in, or we stop everything’.
Of course, if the other side gives in, they will do the same thing all over again within a fairly short period of time.
The ‘rules’ allow them to do all this – but that does not make it civilised behaviour – and those of us in the rest of the world, who are also likely to be affected by this display if it goes on for much longer, quite rightly condemn them as a bunch of selfish idiots.
“The rules don’t require that anything except debt service be funded, after all.”
I look forward to the new rules … after all …. that is done.
Considering that “anything” includes the military and much of the National Guard, and all of those cool killing machines purchased for local police forces, and the funds required to impose martial law on the rampaging population who will be butchering the Republicans and their families and their media talking heads, and I expect Democrats and their families as well, because once you get mob “rule” going, them old rules, they don’t work any more….
….I’d counsel everyone to hide.
“Both sides collaborated in forcing this shutdown, because both sides would rather win than keep the government running.” This right here is top grade bullshit.
While it’s true the ‘rules’ may allow you to say, “Do exactly as I say or I blow up the building!” When the other guy doesn’t do what you want and the building gets blown, its on YOU not him.
I find it fascinating to watch the Republican faithful both take credit for the shutdown and demand the shutdown is not their fault at the same time.
Alex Rodriquez is another hopeless romantic cheat and liar, like Ted Cruz and the rest of the usual suspects, who plays a hard “game” too and likes hard and fast rules adjudicated for everyone else but reserves the loophole variety for himself.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/alex-rodriguez-files-suit-against-selig-mlb-2013-10-04-141033911?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
Brett, I can’t decide if you were one of those officious hall monitors in junior high with a whistle who imposed absolute by the book rules on the hall traffic, and if the rules were not followed absolutely you shut down the school and defaulted on the school assembly debt, or were you one of the libertarians walking with me who meandered as we pleased and flipped off the rule-makers.
Let me guess, you didn’t attend school at all, because of higher and more pristine rules of your own, did ya?
I find it fascinating to watch the Republican faithful both take credit for the shutdown and demand the shutdown is not their fault at the same time.
indeed it is.
why it’s almost enough to make one think that everything the GOP faithful has to say about this is bullshit.
They don’t mandate that you prevail.
True as stated.
What’s normally the case is that you have to actually prevail – you have to actually have more votes – to have your will enacted in law.
Or, conversely, to have standing law overturned or ignored.
The novelty here is that, having failed to prevail, the House (R)’s, or more correctly some number of them, refuse to allow the process to continue.
I guess there oughta be a rule, or some kind of mandate, that would disallow that, but it’s a sad state of affairs that such a thing is even needed.
This right here is top grade bullshit.
Actually, taking Frankfurt’s theory of bullsh*t as the standard, this is not actually bullsh*t.
It’s a lie. It’s factually not the case, and is presented specifically to obscure what is factually the case.
The shutdown is unpopular, so the House (R)’s responsible for causing it want to pin it on somebody else.
Note that failing to take the necessary procedural steps to ensure the continued operation of government is not the unfortunate consequence of a basic inability to come to agreement. It’s a deliberately chosen strategy – a “lever” – to force folks to accept a minority position that has lost, and lost, and lost, and lost, and lost.
It is a deliberately chosen strategy to frustrate and derail the proper and lawful operation of our political process.
Brett’s statement is not bullsh*t, bullsh*t is when you make statements whose truth value is more or less irrelevant.
Brett’s statement is factually false, and is stated not for some instrumental purpose unrelated to its truth or falsehood, but to deliberately obscure the truth of the matter.
It is a lie.
joel – fail; fail; fail
Thanks for your input.
I shall endeavor to improve.
@russell
I acknowledge my mistake. It wasn’t bullshit, it was a deliberate lie.
Thank you for the correction.
If you didn’t prefer shutdown to winning, all you had to do last week was lose, and there wouldn’t have been a shutdown. So stop feeding ME BS: There Democrats were, before the whole world, with a choice: Let Obamacare be defunded, or shut down the government.
And you chose the government shutting down.
Maybe you think that was the right choice, maybe you’d rather have had a third choice, but it WAS the choice you made. You chose shutdown over defunding. Just as the Republicans chose shutdown over funding.
Neither of you are ENTITLED to win this fight. Get that idea out of your heads.
I don’t see justice on either side of this fight. Both sides are acting like spoiled children, and neither side’s leadership is fighting for a position which could prevail in a free legislative vote, which is why Reid ‘fills the tree’ to prevent amendments his own party favors. But neither side is “breaking the rules”, either, unless you count some illegal private park closures by Obama.
The ACA was rammed through the House as a party loyalty vote, and then a special election and the reaction of the voters assured you’d never, ever, get it through the House again. You could have dropped it then, or reworked it so that it had a chance of passing, but you didn’t: You took the first draft, buggy as hell verision you’d barely gotten once through the House, rushed it through the Senate before everything in it could become public, and made it a law knowing that it was a load of crap. Because it was the big legislative accomplishment Obama needed, and that it was crap didn’t matter.
So here it is, a zombie of a law, impossible to repeal because the Senate won’t allow it, impossible to repair because the House only wants to kill it, being wildly patched by one contrary to the actual text executive fiat after another, because it can’t work as written, but by Obama decree can not be altered.
And you imagine the House Republicans are terrorists and hostage takers because they exercise every power they legally have to try to stop it, but you’re not when you shut down the government rather than let them succeed.
It would be joke if the damage weren’t so awful.
More sore losers, who at least admit they were personally injured by extending healthcare insurance to more deserving Americans.
http://www.governing.com/news/state/Lawsuit-Challenging-Arizonas-Medicaid-Expansion-Has-No-Merit-Says-Governors-Lawyers.html
Should they continue this murderous behavior, they should be injured, personally.
When russell said
I guess there oughta be a rule, or some kind of mandate, that would disallow that, but it’s a sad state of affairs that such a thing is even needed.
it sparked a memory, but I can’t seem to google for it effectively.
There are two sets of rules in every group of people: the ones that are explicitly acknowledged, usually codified and written down, that everyone has agreed to play by: Roberts’ Rules of Order, Hoyle’s Rules of Games, etc.
But every sizeable group of people also has unwritten rules. If ALL the rules were written down, there would be so many that the organization would have time for nothing else.
In sports, these unwritten rules are called “good sportsmanship”. I can’t remember the googlable phrase (from sociology? managment studies? I don’t know) for such rules in corporations, unions, schools, government bodies, etc. But there is one!
I recall reading something — maybe written during the 2011 default tango — about how the GOP was no longer playing by the unwritten rules of Congressional good sportsmanship. They were within “The Rules”, the codified ones — but only the way the kind of D&D player who’s called a Rules Lawyer: “who attempts to use the letter of the law without reference to the spirit, usually in order to gain an advantage within that environment.”
The House GOP are being Rules Lawyers. They’re exploiting the codified rules without regard to the spirit of the US Congress, and especially without regard to the *point* of this particular game: which is governance in a republic of conflicting interests.
Just as the Republicans chose shutdown over funding.
This is a blatant lie, as has been pointed out above, Brett. The Republicans caved to their vocal minority and chose shutdown over not defunding.
they are, in fact, playing by the rules. They’re just digging very deep into rules more reasonable people wouldn’t put into play under these same circumstances.
These are valid points.
I do still think that it’s pretty skeevy exploit a rule that technically allows the away team burn down the football stadium unless the refs are overruled and the score changed back to their preferred tally –(I’m taking here about the threat to actually force default in a couple weeks, not the threat over raising the debt limit, which I had analogized as taking the ball and not letting anyone else have it) — it seems to me that there’s a certain lack of proportion between the thing objected to and the lever applied — but I accept that proportionality is quite obviously in the eye of the beholder.
Brett, let me see if I am understanding you properly. Suppose someone decides that they want to totally eliminate all Federal spending spending (including Social Security and Medicare, defense, etc.) in all Republican Congressional districts, and they tie that to a CR. Does that mean that Republicans are at fault for a shutdown if they decline to agree to overturn all the various laws involved? Even though legislation to do so would have zero chance of passing otherwise.
Because that seems to be a reasonable and logical next step. If I can get half of one house to agree to something, and tie that to keeping the government up and running (or to avoiding defaulting), then I should get my way.
Is that really what you mean to say? Or have I somehow misunderstood you?
i swear, i can’t tell if the people who repeat this think they’re wielding some kind of fearsome +5 Logic axe or if they’re trolling the rest of us by pretending to be a snotty nine year old.
wj, that’s ridiculous. The Republicans would absolutely not be “at fault” for your hypothetical shutdown showdown.
They’d be “equally at fault“.
Geez. Use some common sense here.
Correction: Just as the Republicans chose shutdown over
fundingnot defunding.The Democrats were forced to choose between shutdown and defunding. The Republicans chose to limit themselves, and Democrats, to that choice.
You’re ignoring the fact that Republicans precipitated the whole deal, or you are pretending that they had no choice but to do it.
If the ACA is so bad, it shouldn’t be that hard to repeal once everyone gets to see how it goes for some amount of time. Even if it proves unworkable, it’s not going to be nearly as bad as a shutdown on day one.
all you had to do last week was lose, and there wouldn’t have been a shutdown.
First of all, unless I have been elected to the Senate without my knowledge, the “you” here is misplaced.
Second, what you are lumping under “all you had to do … was lose” is basically to reverse all of the following:
1. the original passage of the ACA
2. the failure of numerous attempts SINCE THE (R) REGAINED A MAJORITY IN THE HOUSE to overturn the law
3. the failure of numerous attempts to challenge the law on constitutional grounds, culminating in a SCOTUS decision
4. the failure to elect a Presidential candidate who made the overturning of the ACA a significant part of his platform
So yes, if the Senate had been willing to put aside, by fiat, years of governmental process and decision making, they would have been able to accommodate the House (R)’s, and the shutdown would have been averted.
I look forward to this being the new standard for decision making. Don’t you?
To address this:
a special election and the reaction of the voters assured you’d never, ever, get it through the House again.
Here is a summary of the level of effort expended by the House (R) *since gaining the majority in 2011* to overturn or otherwise cripple the ACA.
They DID NOT PREVAIL.
I don’t care what your opinion of the ACA is. My opinion is mixed. None of that matters at this point, frankly, because good, bad, or indifferent (or, more likely, some combination of all of those things) it is now the law.
If the House (R)’s want to continue to repeal, modify, defund, or any other form of screwing with the ACA, they are welcome to do so. They will have ample opportunity, the actual implementation of the law will take years to roll out. A number of details have already been modified or removed, I’m sure more will be as time goes on.
What the House (R)’s are not entitled to do is to prevent normal government operations until they get their way.
They aren’t going to get their way. They don’t have the votes.
Kindly re-read that last sentence.
And because THEY DO NOT HAVE THE VOTES, they in fact ought not get their way.
They should knock this stupid sh*t off and let everybody get to work.
Here’s me meta offering:
What we’re doing here is expressing our individual opinions about this situation. Obviously, not everyone will share the same opinion. In the end, what will matter is what opinion carries the day, based on the numbers of people holding various opinions.
So it doesn’t matter who’s “wrong” or “right.” What does matter is who ends up paying the political price.
Have fun with that; GOP, Tea Party and Brett.
“I don’t see justice on either side of this fight. Both sides are acting like spoiled children ….”
Too late now to remove your spoiled dog from this fight and declare yourself above it all, son.
“If you didn’t prefer shutdown to winning, all you had to do last week was lose, and there wouldn’t have been a shutdown.”
I would prefer shutting down Obsidian Wings and forcing it to default on whatever debts it has incurred, to allowing you (and me) to be banned, Brett, and all I have to do is lose, and there won’t be a shutdown.
“Brett, let me see if I am understanding you properly.”
Osama bin Laden, let me see if I am understanding you properly. You’re saying that if you knock down the World Trade Center, killing thousands, and the United States does not agree to lose and declare itself the far western end of the Caliphate, that Americans have chosen to shut down the United States.
There are the Marquis of Queensbury rules for fighting and then there are the more absolute rules out here in the street, wherein if you choose to lose, we’ll be back next week to kick your ass over the EPA and Medicare.
Nice sister, you’ve got there, too. Too bad if something happened to her should you decide to win.
Brett skrev:
Both sides
Ah.
I’m done here.
[All our contestants will receive a deluxe version of the exciting “House Divided Against Itself” home game, and a gift certificate for one hundered Confederate dollars, redeemable at any Walmart]
Zombie law full of damage? Note the damage is not explained.
And never will be.
joel – fail; fail; fail
I may have come across a little more judgmental than I intended…
… But in my defence, I was attempting to exercise the judgment of a four year old.
(Which is a higher bar than that the House Republicans seem to be adopting.)
“Zombie law full of damage? Note the damage is not explained.”
It turned 27% of Americans into Zombies, excluding Brett, whose zombiehood is several orders above the unjust spoiled zombie apocalypse.
That said, being a charitable person, I hope Brett takes advantage of the ACA to get his anti-Zombie shots, if he so chooses, which he may or may not.
Freedom.
lj:
“This may be a really really bad idea, but here goes.”
I may have come across a little more judgmental than I intended…
Does that let me off the hook, too? I can stop googling ‘Stalin’ now? I did find out that it was a characteristic of older cars and airplanes. Not all is lost.
In sports, these unwritten rules are called “good sportsmanship”. I can’t remember the googlable phrase (from sociology? managment studies? I don’t know) for such rules in corporations, unions, schools, government bodies, etc.
Dr. S, I think the word you are looking for is “culture”. (As in, sometimes, “corporate culture”.) What we are seeing in Congress is a group of people who have not been (or have not allowed themselves to be) acculturated. That is, even though they have joined the Congress, they do not know, or refuse to abide by, the unwritten rules that allow the institution/organization to function.
There are really only two ways that this cna play out. First, the culture of the organization may change. (All parties decide that they will fillibuster all nominations, for example.) Or, second, those who refuse to abide by the culture of the institution get marginalized. That is, they discover that they are not allowed to do anything which is not explicitly provided for in the written rules. And the written rules start being adjusted to make their worse transgressions of the organizational culture explicitly forbidden. After which, they discover that they are essentially unable to function at all.
In the case of the members of Congress, I could see them gradually finding that, while pork barrel spending continues, none of it ever goes to their districts. And they end up with no committee assignments (i.e. no place to sit in front of cameras and pontificate); certainly no committee assignments — somehow seniority doesn’t seem to be applied to them. And perhaps their staff allocations get cut — they get a choice of paying their people less (and getting the kind of quality that you would expect as a result) or having fewer people.
Those how have little experience with other cultures frequently are blissfully unaware, when they find themselves in one, that the unwritten rules are even more important than the formal and explicit ones. Until their flouting of them (deliberately or in ignorance) starts to bite them.
Apologies for missing the “end italics” tag.
let’s see …
wj:
One of the problems “moderate” Republicans have talked about is the end of the earmarks system — which was done as part of government reform, mind you.
Except it now turns out that, without them, it’s hard to give junior House members — as most of these are — cookies for toeing the party line.
Republicans are also finding that Citizens United is biting them, here. Those junior, Tea Party members no longer need to depend on the central GOP fundraising organizations, they can raise campaign funds directly from wealthy individuals (or their PACs). The party no longer has a clear power of the purse over the junior members.
Dr S, one thing a lot of legislators (and voters) have never grasped: unintended consequences — which are forever messing up totally well-intended initiatives. And somehow we never seem to grasp that we ought to at least consider what, other than our wonderful result, is likely to happen as a result.
Unintended consequences.
Back in the day when it was possible for me to vote for a Republican I knew a lady R city council member pretty well. This was in the nineties. I doubt if she is still a Republican because she was disgusted with the jingoism and faux outrage/victimization shenanigans of the extreme right of that time. Anyway her approach to politics was to be very grounded, very much a steward of the infrastructure, the schools, the small businesses, the things she saw as the mainstays of the community. She was not insensitive to the needs of disabled people or children in poverty. She was very suspicious of initiatives to address root causes because of the fear of unintended consequences or just failure and waste of money. She was a supporter of the status quo but willing to see and address problems, provided the solution wasn’t something that seemed too risky to her.
That kind of Republican just doesn’t seem to exist any more. She knew that voodoo economics was a bunch of crap, she didn’t like abortion but was offended by the self-righteousness of the anti-choicers, she didn’t think flag-waving made people patriotic, she didn’t think the earth was flat or that God created people simultaneously with dinosaurs, and she didn’t divide society into the 2% against the 98%.
She was just an instinctively cautious person who thought that it was best to focus government resources on solvable problems.
I didn’t keep in touch with her, but I know other people like her who are now former Republicans.
Too bad Atwater didn’t foresee the consequences of the Southern Strategy.
“I recall reading something — maybe written during the 2011 default tango — about how the GOP was no longer playing by the unwritten rules of Congressional good sportsmanship.”
Doctor Science, these rules of good sportsmanship… One presumes they include things like, oh, allowing time for a large bill to be completely read and discussed before forcing a vote?
Some of us like that are still Republicans. And still vote in Republican primaries for such sane candidates as are on offer. Mostly they don’t make it, and we end up voting for someone who isn’t a Repbilican in the general election.
But we are still Republicans. And, God willing, someday we will manage to take back our party. (Yes, I am not unaware of the echo of the lunatics’ cry to “Take back our country.” Ironic, I suppose.)
Too late, wj.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/08/7-obamacare-conspiracy-theory
This behavior described here is murder by vermin.
I’m going out tonight to fiddle with railway crossing signs to cause auto traffic to mistakenly cross in front of moving trains.
I’m going to enter the apartment building cross the street and change all of the fire exit signs to guide folks unawares back into the flames.
I’m going to drive to the airport tonight and shine my pointer into airline cockpits as they land to confuse the pilots about the descent of their planes.
I’m going to guide blind people at street crossing into traffic by telling them the lights are with them.
This party is not something to be taken back.
You are not a Republican. Get a new name.
The Republican Party is a murderer. There is a Death Panel heading for it.
Stay away. You don’t want to be near them.
some people want the government to spend more, some less, and they can’t agree.
easy enough.
Besides the end of the earmarks system and Citizens United removing “leverage” over the rump radical end of the republican party, severe gerrymandering has made the most radical right-wing candidates from right-wing districts impervious to electoral challenge, even from the moderate, now dead, end of that murder syndicate.
So, Doctor Science, I don’t see what “we’ll see”.
What are we going to see?
I think more of the same we’ve been seeing in the exponential rise in uncompromising and armed right wing radicalism, brought full-scale into the houses of government.
You can go back and read my comments here long before the stolen election of 2000.
I told you they were coming.
Here they are. Can’t you see them?
Well I hope people like wj can take the party back. We would all be a lot better off.
the money has already been spent. the GOP is threatening to refuse to pay the bills.
because “fiscal responsibility”, i’m sure.
Some riffs for the weekend:
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/10/04/history-of-the-guitar-solo/
Have a good one.
My comments this week and last in music form:
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/10/04/history-of-the-guitar-solo/
Where’s the lighter fluid?
oops, that second one should be:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcb36OSUTzg
Mum’s the word for the weekend.
Here’s my explanation:
You know how sometimes you need everyone to play a game, or else you can’t play? Well, government is the same way. Everyone has to participate, or it doesn’t work. Some people are so unhappy that they lost the last game, they aren’t letting anyone else play anymore games at all until everyone decides to let them win the next game for free.
Getting back to “How Do We Tell The Children,” I really can’t think of anything in a kid’s experience that relates to what’s going on in Congress.
Kids know about bullies, and they know about teacher’s pets. But I don’t know of any kid-level archetypes for someone like Boehner. A weakling who clings to his status and title while having neither the skills nor the moxie to do the job that gives him the status and title.
The nearest thing I can think of is a specific variety of Bad Teacher: the ones who side with the class bullies and mean girls against the studious types in order to feel “cool.”
“severe gerrymandering has made the most radical right-wing candidates from right-wing districts impervious to electoral challenge, even from the moderate, now dead, end of that murder syndicate.”
That’s nothing but delusional. Seriously, it is, and hilariously so given which party has the more lop-sided districts.
Boehner wins by 60%, Cantor wins by 58%, Pelosi by 85%, and it’s Republicans who occupy the “impervious” districts. Seriously, you are delusional.
I was going to suggest that ‘delusional’ is a bit strong and ask to ratchet it back a bit, but I saw that Brett was addressing the Count, and, at least in my humble opinion, that hallucinogenic quality of the Count’s comments is akin to Picasso’s ‘art is a lie that helps us see the truth’. Long may he wave.
But Brett’s deployment of Boehner, Cantor and Pelosi seems a bit forced. This WaPo article gives the most ‘gerrymandered districts’ in 2011. While Brett will probably misread the article and say that it lists dems and republicans, it looks like all the gerrymandering is to benefit Republicans, either by making weak districts more republican or targeting democrats by adding more republican areas to their district.
It is also interesting to note this article, which suggests that Republicans are a victim of their own success in gerrymandering, and have succeeded in pushing the party further right, something which current events seem to bear out. Who would have guessed that getting what you want is often such a problematic thing?
Oh, and this article is interesting.
HAVING the first modern democracy comes with bugs. Normally we would expect more seats in Congress to go to the political party that receives more votes, but the last election confounded expectations. Democrats received 1.4 million more votes for the House of Representatives, yet Republicans won control of the House by a 234 to 201 margin. This is only the second such reversal since World War II.
snip
Confounding conventional wisdom, partisan redistricting is not symmetrical between the political parties. By my seat-discrepancy criterion, 10 states are out of whack: the five I have mentioned, plus Virginia, Ohio, Florida, Illinois and Texas. Arizona was redistricted by an independent commission, Texas was a combination of Republican and federal court efforts, and Illinois was controlled by Democrats. Republicans designed the other seven maps. Both sides may do it, but one side does it more often.
Surprisingly absent from the guilty list is California, where 62 percent of the two-party vote went to Democrats and the average mock delegation of 38 Democrats and 15 Republicans exactly matched the newly elected delegation. Notably, California voters took redistricting out of legislators’ hands by creating the California Citizens Redistricting Commission.
Gerrymandering is not hard. The core technique is to jam voters likely to favor your opponents into a few throwaway districts where the other side will win lopsided victories, a strategy known as “packing.” Arrange other boundaries to win close victories, “cracking” opposition groups into many districts. Professionals use proprietary software to draw districts, but free software like Dave’s Redistricting App lets you do it from your couch.
This also suggests that invocation of percentages actually goes the other way. The goal is to pack all of your opponent’s votes into a few districts, giving them higher totals, and make it so all of your folks win comfortably.
It is delusional, and not just in the idea that it’s Republicans who have these ‘invincible’ districts.
It mistakes how gerrymandering works, too. A successful partisan gerrymander results in the party NOT doing the gerrymandering getting those ‘invincible’ districts. You trade away safety, (Which the other party gets.) for numbers. So you have a larger number of seats, but they are less secure than they would have been without the gerrymandering.
The primary way in which the GOP gerrymanders, (And make no mistake, Democrats indulge, too, when they can.) is by taking the Voting Rights act’s demand for ‘majority-minority’ districts, and turning it up to 11. Republican gerrymandering has boosted the size of the black caucus. Now, given how dependent the Democratic party is on the black vote, you can hardly openly complain about this, but it’s still true.
Because gerrymandering to win more seats produces less secure seats, (Merely in larger numbers.) Republicans, as a result of their own gerrymandering, ended up with a lot of seats where they have no choice but to be responsive to their own base, because they need all of it in order to win those seats. Republicans are acting the way they are because they are representing their constituents, and I’m fairly sure a lot of them would rather they had districts like Pelosi’s, where they could piss off 40% of their own party, and still comfortably win.
There are, of course, lop-sided Republican districts, though not nearly so many as Democrats have. They are generally in areas where the districts would be lopsidedly Republican regardless of how you drew them. For instance, look at Boehner’s district. Almost completely surrounded by other Republican districts, how do you propose to draw it’s edges so that it would be a Democratic district?
Some riffs for the weekend:
Yikes, no Elliot Randall?
Also, I believe Brett and LJ are talking past each other re: the definition and practice of gerrymandering. Yes, the tactic is to isolate opponents in a district of their own, and yes, the point is to increase the likelihood of your guys and girls winning in the remaining districts.
It’s like the certs mint ad, you’re both right!
Regardless, however they managed to get there, the House tea party (R)’s remain an intractable, rabidly partisan lot, who are quite pleased to be the clot in the arteries of the body public.
The stroke the rest of us suffer is arguably not the point of the exercise, it’s merely the means, however it is a means that is chosen deliberately and with intent to harm.
So, they can kiss my keister. I’ll be telling my rep and senators to yield not an inch to their irresponsible bullying.
Also, Patrick at 9:08 wins the thread.
Our 4-year-old, having been splained, thought about it and took the easy way out:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/4-year-old-accidentally-shoots-himself-after-finding-gun
Brett: Boehner wins by 60%, Cantor wins by 58%, Pelosi by 85%, and it’s Republicans who occupy the “impervious” districts. Seriously, you are delusional.
But that’s not how gerrymandering works, whenn done right. To be successful, your ideal is to have your guys in districts which they will win by 60%-65% (to leave some room for shifts in voters or their views). That’s effectively “impervious”, without wasting votes. While you put you opponenets into districts which they win by as close as possible to 100% (to waste as many votes as possible).
So Pelosi’s district is approaching what an ideal Republican gerrymander would give her. Not that it is the result of that, of course. Her district got drawn by a non-partisan commission created to avoid gerrymandering. It’s just that opinion in her part of California is seriously skewed, so there isn’t much chance of a swing district. (Well, that and the fact that the California Republican Party has gone so far off the deep end that they will only win is districts which deviate significantly from the state norm. Witness how their candidates do in the elections for state-wide offices.)
The TP would be negligible without gerrymandering but it needed another ingredient (apart from Koch money that is): primaries, in particular primaries with low turnout. TP success relies on the threat: If you RINO cross us, we will primary you.You know that the turnout is low and that we have ways to keep it even lower by deterring those from participatng that are not with us. We may not win the seat with the nutjob we nominate but YOU will be out in any case. That way a small number of organized extremists can control the large number of pragmatists. The enemy may kill you but we will for sure, if you do not obey.
It’s a gamble and relies on the credibility of the threat that one would rather give the seat to the opposition than to allow an (outwardyl) ‘impure’ of your own side to keep it.
Thanks wj, that was the point I was trying to make, that Brett’s numbers support a thesis of Republican gerrymandering. Of course, trying to logically reason with Brett may be delusional…
But that threat has a preffy high credibility. Check the track record of the California Republicans. We started well before the Tea Party came along. But we managed to go from candidates which could win the governorship and numerous other state-wide offices to a run of candidates who successfully lose all of them. (Not to mention dropping our number of legislators to the point of irrelevance.)
And we have also, foreshadowing the Tea Party types, succeeded in making the Republican brand toxic to the point that even the occasional moderate pragmitist who slips thru the primaries has an extremely hard time convincing the bulk of voters that he is not just another nut case.
We’ve got purity of ideology in our candidates, no question. And there’s no sign that even a couple of decades of repeatedly and consistently losing elections has convinced most of my fellow Republicans to try something different.
Now they have found out that controlling the speaker by threat is enough provided they have enough votes to prevent a different one to get put in his place (and that’s just R – D + 1).
WJ, is there any effort in California to start a new party? Call it the Moderate Party (Not that California Democrats aren’t moderate. I suppose they vary). Or call it the Main Street Republicans. Something like that.
Here’s a fantasy:
Pelosi and the Dems strike a deal with Boehner. He resigns as Speaker. The House has to elect a new speaker by a majority of the votes cast. The Dems’ deal with Boehner is that they will all abstain. If the sane Republicans outnumber the loonies, Boehner gets re-elected Speaker, and puts a clean CR and a clean debt limit increase on the floor. One or both pass, possibly with a “bare” majority.
Fantasy, yes. Unprecedented? I suppose so. But is it any more fantastical or outrageous than the Defund-Obamacare Cruzade?
I don’t take it for granted that Boehner himself is not one of the loonies. I don’t take it for granted that there are enough “sane” Republicans in the House to re-elect Boehner as Speaker. The whole deal could be a futile exercise. But would the government or the nation be any worse off if it is?
–TP
Brett: Republicans are acting the way they are because they are representing their constituents
TP, a couple of days ago: Let’s save a little loathing for the idiots who vote the clowns into office, shall we?
It’s nice that Brett and I agree once in a while.
–TP
Now they have found out that controlling the speaker by threat is enough
And the threat is just that he’d lose his Speakership. SFAIK, the TP caucus doesn’t have his family under lock and key somewhere.
Though I’d add that the TPers also seem to have all the so-called “moderate” GOP reps pissing their pants, too. Otherwise the discharge petition would have worked.
Seems this is going to last right up until the default event horizon. I don’t expect the TPers will budge then, either. They believe defaulting will force Obama to do something they can impeach him for, and impeaching Obama is their bestest,shiniest dream.
“Thanks wj, that was the point I was trying to make, that Brett’s numbers support a thesis of Republican gerrymandering.”
Indeed, they do. No argument there, although Democrats tend to exaggerate the extent of it. What I was disputing was the Count’s understanding of the effect of gerrymandering, not his claim it was happening.
Gerrymandering for partisan advantage doesn’t produce invincible seats for the party doing it. It produces them, but fewer seats overall, for the OTHER party. The party doing it winds up with more, but more vulnerable, seats.
That’s the cause of what Democrats perceive as Republican extremism: Not that their seats have been rendered invincible by gerrymandering, but that they have been rendered vulnerable, they need all their base to be sure of winning them, and so have to do what the base wants. Not what YOU want, and maybe them, too.
I could go on about what I see as the real reasons for increasing partisan extremism, but my son has a music lesson shortly.
Laura, if there is an attempt to create a new party, I haven’t become aware of it.
As we have seen nationally, creating a new major party is an extremely difficult undertaking. It took the issue slavery to make it happen, the one time in our history it succeeded. But a huge issue is not a sufficient condition. My take is that it requires a huge issue which neither of the existing parties is addressing satisfactorily.
I really don’t see an issue on which one party has a position which is utterly unacceptable to a substantial portion of the electorate, and the other has either the same position or at least a do-nothing position. One might argue that our Federal finances are something like that. But I just don’t see that resulting in a new party at this point. Especially at the state level.
the real reasons for increasing partisan extremism
i’m curious to hear this.
as far as i can tell, partisan extremism exists on one end of the spectrum, and one end, only.
there *is no extremism* on the left. not only is there no extremism, there is no more than a nominal left in the US.
just for reference, left-wing extremism would include stuff like:
nationalizing major industries
punitive tax rates on investment income
no hire-at-will
labor representation on corporate boards, including the right to vote on all decisions
and no, ACA does not represent the nationalization of a major industry.
and by any kind of international standard, that’s not even extreme, with the possible exception of the tax rates on investment income, stuff like that is more or less *normal* among OECD countries with mixed economies.
there is virtually *no* left wing at the national level. i say ‘virtually’ because bernie sanders is still alive.
by any kind of international standard, the political spectrum in the US runs from center to reactionary right.
strong partisanship exists, but the ‘extremes’ it describes run from tepid on the left, to vehement reaction on the right.
Brett, what gerrymandering does is give both parties invulnerable seats.
The party doing it doesn’t get vulnerable seats (absent a tectonic change in the population or their views). Not at all. They merely get invulnerable seats that don’t waste votes beyond the 2/3 needed to be reliably invulnerable.
“as far as i can tell, partisan extremism exists on one end of the spectrum, and one end, only.”
Well, that IS what any extremist at the other end of the spectrum is going to think, isn’t it?
WJ, there are two forms of gerrymandering, with different objectives. Gerrymandering for party advantage functions as I related. Gerrymandering for incumbent protection tends to sort things out so both party’s incumbents are invulnerable. But THAT is something of a bipartisan venture.
Perhaps though we simply differ on our threshold of what we call “invincible”.
“Well, that IS what any extremist at the other end of the spectrum is going to think, isn’t it?”
No. You can step outside your own personal views and look at it somewhat objectively, without making value judgments. For instance, some people on the left thought that Obamacare was a sellout to the insurance companies–some wanted the public option, and then some further to the left thought even a public option was a sellout and wanted single payer. Hell, even a lot of people who support Obamacare really would prefer single payer, but settled for what was possible. The leftwing equivalent to the Tea Party would be a host of representatives creating a government shutdown and threatening not to raise the debt ceiling unless we got single payer. There’s nothing remotely like that in DC (and as much as I wish we had much more of a left in the US, I wouldn’t want that sort of craziness.)
There is obviously extremism on both ends of the political spectrum. Necessarily. What differs is the amount of influence that the extremists exercise over the rest of their party.
Brett, my definition of “invincible” is a sufficient advantage that the normal range of variation in votes is smaller than the difference between what in normal in the district and 50%+1. When that is the case, you can be confindent that you will routinely win without effort.
When the normal variation in votes spans both sides of 50%, you have a district where one party is not invincible. If you are working from a different definition, how big a usual percentage to you consider constitutes being invincible?
The current Republican party is, of course, a coalition of extremists who do not have a significant base in the population. How many people take Ayn Rand seriously? How many people think women’s bodies reject sperm under rape conditions? How many Americans think we can achieve “fiscal conservatism” by cutting taxes and fighting two wars? How many Americans want to turn Medicare into a voucher system? The way Republican politicians get elected is by dog whistling to the extremists and lying to everyone else. They also have been skating on the reputation from decades ago of being the “respectable” party in contrast to the crazy democrats who supported things like the Civil Rights Act and had messy violent conventions.
So far as actual constituents:( By actual constituents I mean people who are actually getting what they are voting for) the Republican party serves wealthy people who vote for tax cuts for themselves, people who vote for federal dollars for the special interest group to which they are affiliated, people who vote anti-choice, and people with nonstandard understandings of reality.
The responsible conversation about policy has moved to within the Democratic party. By “responsible” I mean mainstream, broadly supported, ordinary, based on expertise, intellectually and morally defensible. The core idea of Obamacare is an example. The idea of the exchanges came from the Heritage Foundation as a conservative alternative to single payer; now the Republican party has rejected their own idea and the idea found a home with the Democrats. The responsible conversation about health care was about how to provide it. The irresponsible position was the Republican one: let people die, let them go bankrupt, so what?
I working around to wondering if a base for another party will develop.
In Colorado at the state level a Republican majority pissed away their time in power on crazy ideological stuff and didn’t take care of the basics. they got un-elected by voters who wanted the roads paved and the schools funded without a lot of political and religious hectoring. Then the Republicans used pro-gun hysteria to unelected three Democrats so it’s back to the ideology and hectoring at least from those three seats.
Maybe there is not base for another party yet and we are stuck with veering between take-care-of-the-stuff-that-needs-to-be-done from one party and extremism from the other.
You’d think people would get tired of it after a while.
Well, that IS what any extremist at the other end of the spectrum is going to think, isn’t it?
a cute reply, which addresses exactly none of the substance of my comment.
Gerrymandering and Legislator Efficiency (.pdf)
just for reference, left-wing extremism would include stuff like:
…no hire-at-will
That’s left-wing extremism ?
Left wing, sure, but extreme?
I understand that Europe is considered (and indeed is) left wing by American standards, but no hire-at-will has been settled law here for decades. And quite rightly so.
Left and right may argue about the extent of employment law, but the idea that there should be no right to claim for unfair dismissal would be seen as quite out there on the right.
I work with someone who considers Obamacare “Communist,” thus leaping right over socialism to good old Marxist-Leninism. She of course doesn’t know what socialism or communism actually are, any more than the TPs who constantly use both terms to describe any policy to the left of Attila the Hun.
There are good, worthy-of-debate questions as to whether a Scandinavian-style hybrid of socialism and capitalism would “work” in the US. In my political fantasy world, we’d at least give it a try.
But the first thing we’d have to do is dismantle the MIC – not only because it’s too damned expensive, but because it absorbs too many of our intellectual, materiel, and political resources. And the chances of that happening are between “less than none” and “heat death of the universe happening first.”
Brett @7:07:
Just FYI, I didn’t click on your link, because too much youtube crashes my browser. Also, I’m too impatient for video.
Persausive documentation will be: text-based, and from a “neutral” or MSM source: nytimes.com, washingtonpost.com, bbc.co.uk, csmonitor.com, etc. I will accept foxnews.com links provisionally, but will ignore video.
But besides that:
this *is* what counts as “good sportsmanship” in politics. You may prefer to think of it as “sausage-making”. Nothing the Democrats did to pass the ACA comes close to what the GOP did to pass Medicare Part D, and the Democrats accepted that as ugly sausage-making, but sausage-making nonetheless.
What the House GOP is doing now is outside the bounds. The parties are *supposed* to have the mutual goal of a working US government and financial system. The GOP, right now, does not have that goal, that’s why we say they’re taking hostages, not negotiating in the usual sense.
That’s left-wing extremism ?
In the US, “no hire at will” is not only leftist extremism, it’s one of the Four Horsemen of the Socialist Apocalypse.
Which is basically my point.
Here is the web page of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. They stake out wildly leftist positions like:
Not reducing Social Security benefits
Paying federal contractors a living wage
Reducing preferential tax rates for investment income
Maintaining the inheritance tax
That’s the radical extreme left in the US. It used to be known as “the Eisenhower administration”.
“No. You can step outside your own personal views and look at it somewhat objectively, without making value judgments.”
You can certainly attempt to, and in some cases succeed. But if the effort ends with you concluding that your side is without sin, and the other guys, (Who are not a vanishingly small minority, but have serious levels of public support.) are just flat out lunatics, you might reasonably suspect you failed.
So, you’re the reasonable side in this?
“The current Republican party is, of course, a coalition of extremists who do not have a significant base in the population. How many people take Ayn Rand seriously?”
About a hundred times as many as take Noam Chomsky seriously? At a rough estimate, judging by book sales. About a million volumes of Atlas Shrugged this year.
Brett, did you read what I wrote to you earlier? Taking the word of “The Daily Caller” is NOT the way to be the reasonable one.
Find the article on a respectable news site and we’ll discuss it. Otherwise, you should assume that it’s Reality Politics.
“About a hundred times as many as take Noam Chomsky seriously? At a rough estimate, judging by book sales. About a million volumes of Atlas Shrugged this year.”
Sounds plausible enough. You can read far left critiques of US crimes online for free. I myself haven’t purchased a Chomsky book in nearly 15 years. Rand, on the other hand, is a “philosophical” writer who gives people an excuse to feel superior if they are selfish. Not surprising that she has a following, especially among adolescent young conservatives who think there is something deep about the self-proclaimed greatest philosopher since Aristotle. (Yes, I read Atlas Shrugged and quite a few of her essays, because a friend admired her. I also read a few issues of the newspaper put out by the Revolutionary Communist Party once–different friend.) What’s really fascinating are conservative Christians like Paul Ryan who think she has something worthwhile to say, though she’d have been the first to tell them that their beliefs and hers were diametrically opposed.
As for sanity, your side is the one that lacks it, Brett. Closing down the government and threatening not to raise the debt ceiling is the sort of thing I might expect a really stupid lefty extremist to do, if there were enough of them in Congress. But that’s not the kind of idiot we have there, is it?
Haha Atlas Shrugged.
Trolls gotta troll.
‘”The current Republican party is, of course, a coalition of extremists who do not have a significant base in the population. How many people take Ayn Rand seriously?”
About a hundred times as many as take Noam Chomsky seriously? At a rough estimate, judging by book sales. About a million volumes of Atlas Shrugged this year.’
So, the Republican Party IS a coalition of extremists WITH a significant base in the population.
Duck, wabbit, duck, wabbit, duck, wabbit, duck …… duck.
As for Chomsky, if his work had a female protagonist standing at the edges of rock quarries becoming between the legs as she gazed in a hot ideological sweat at our hero toiling below against blocks of marble, or male protagonists somehow remaining full engorged as they lectured rapt ideologues with thirty pages (shouldn’t that trip the four-hour Viagra rule for seeking medical attention … for the insured only of course) of overwrought, mind-numbing, but limp, prose, I might visit my extremist (by Objectivist standards, because that’s where we extremists share books at taxpayer expense) library, and check a few of his volumes out and see what all the fuss is about.
Can Brett direct me to the naughty bits in Chomsky? Maybe I’ve been missed something all these years by not reading him.
In other news from the sadistic chimera that is the extremist hard Right in this endangered civilization, Ayn Rand would cheer the barring of taxpayer-paid priests from their duties.
Those priests are merely being treated like 800,000 (many more including private contractors) of their fellow Americans who stand accused by the Republican Party of stealing other people’s money and sticking their noses where they aren’t Constitionally welcome.
As for First Amendment Rights, all of these furloughed employees are not permitted to use their work emails either.
Neither are the priests, one would hope.
God’s word is available for free …. everywhere. Not in “Atlas Shrugged”, but sometimes it’s hard to tell if your reading a dog-eared copy borrowed from a right-wing extremist, because many of the pages are stuck together.
Finally, hire and fire at will practices have only persisted (not that I disagree with them … until now) in this country because we have a reasonably financed social safety net in place, mostly at the federal level.
In fact, employers hire and fire-at-will practices are ENHANCED by the ACA, because now some (not enough) individual Americans who are fired or laid off or who suffer from pre-existing conditions which prospective employers might find off-putting, may now rest assured that they, and their children, have the OPPORTUNITY to retain adequate, affordable health insurance.
In fact, some employers are resting easier, by their choice, not the government’s, because they now have the FREEDOM (when talking to a four-year-old, sometimes all caps are useful) to hire a person without financing their health insurance, or to keep an employee on the payroll who might be medically expensive.
Employees who until now who had aspirational American dreams of entrepreneurial pursuit — starting their own SMALL businesses or perhaps trying to monetize their artistic talents — and were not able to do so because they and their dependents could not afford health insurance on their own (some have witnessed friends and family die and THEIR dependents left bankrupt because of medical bills) now have the FREEDOM to unshackle themselves from their employers and quit.
Having said all that, I’m an extremist, so here’s my latest non-negotiable demand:
I want hire and fire-at will policies for private employers abolished, and the government shut down and the debt defaulted on unless funding for the ACA is tripled while Congress immediately begins planning, implementing, and financing a universal, single-payer health insurance system that will offer many more private health insurance plan CHOICES than any private employer in this country offers now, because private employers hate choice for their employees.
Well, what else but RW nutty could one call a party/movement that considers Otto von Bismarck a commie/socialist/leftie? If Rush Limbaugh says it, it must be at least mainstream on the right.
I hope daughters everywhere have stopped listening as I explain the Rand versus Chomsky orgasm gap.
PERHAPS BRETT BELLMORE IS RIGHT!
How many people take Ayn Rand seriously?”
About a hundred times as many as take Noam Chomsky seriously
Precisely. I could not have said it better.
There is obviously extremism on both ends of the political spectrum.
No, there is not. There is barely a left at all, let alone an extreme left.
There are definitely poles in American politics, but they run from the center to the right.
It hasn’t always been that way, but it is that way now.
If you would like to give me an example of anyone at the national level who advocates for an extreme left position, I’d be both amazed and delighted to hear about it.
Have at it.
I think the reason the Republican party has become so extreme is the substitution of ideology or religion for thought.
Democrats are more practical, more willing to respond to feedback from reality.
Republicans try to impose their ideology or religion on everyone else by way of the legislative process. Most of the time their ideology/religion provides an handy excuse for not addressing a problem as in the case of health care or civil rights. Sometimes their ideology or religion is the problem as in the magical thinking about tax cuts for the rich or the magical effects of abstinence-only education. But a defining factor of Republican political thought is a refusal to change ideas in the face of the failure of the idea. That’s extremism.
Brett: So, you’re the reasonable side in this?
With a link to a Daily Caller article with the headline “Priests threatened with arrest if they minister to military during shutdown.”
Well, that does sound objectionable. Better read further.
“In a stunning development, some military priests are facing arrest if they celebrate mass or practice their faith on military bases during the federal government shutdown.”
So it seems no one has been threatened with arrest. And it seems these are military priests, not priests writ large. And it seems this restriction applies only on military bases.
That might still be objectionable, what else does the article say?
“many [government service] and contract priests who minister to Catholics on military bases worldwide are not permitted to work – not even to volunteer”
Yes, that seems to be the regular rule for government employees and contractors during the furlough. People are told not even to reply from emails from home or risk criminal sanctions.
“During the shutdown, it is illegal for them to minister on base and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so.”
The same goes for IRS workers who attempt to show up for work.
Fail.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/10/05/how-do-you-fight-this-kind-of-stupid/
Once the stupid virus reaches a critical mass momentum in the species, it will multiply exponentially and very suddenly and we will be engulfed.
Why aren’t we quarantining the infected as the radical Right wanted AIDS patients quarantined.
At least keep the infected away from the emergency rooms.
We haven’t much time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md6Dvxdr0AQ
Priests don’t make much money; I feel for them.
May God smite send a pox to the radical right for halting their pay and First Amendment Rights.
In Arizona, run by the radical right, the out-of work priests might also starve by the rules of “Atlas Shrugged”.
They might become Protestants, in the radical sense of the word.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/arizona-is-only-state-to-stop-welfare-checks-during-shutdown
Recently, Slart, in his way ;), mentioned racism as a Tea Party, right-wing motivation for opposing the ACA.
He’d be right about that:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2013_10/the_government_shutdown_and_th047190.php
What doesn’t the money hypothesis explain?
At risk of going all economics-explains-everything I would argue that the difference between the Liberal Bubble and the Conservative Bubble wouldn’t even be noticeable if it weren’t for economic asymmetry between the parties; crazy people would be more or less equally distributed and a whole lot less visible.
Can we stipulate that:
1) The political-party economic niche is a lot like the media economic niche. The voters/viewers/listeners are the product, not the customer, though product and customer occasionally overlap.
2) “Capital” is a constituency. It has an interest in policies that encourage net transfers of wealth and prestige to its own members, like any other constituency. Its members, however, are more able to pay than most, because they have more money to begin with.
So to the extent that “capital” is a constituency of the GOP, the GOP has more money per constituent to throw at the political process. That in turn means that the marginal value (to existing GOP constituents) of one additional Republican vote (not necessarily one additional constituent!) is at least a little bit higher (in dollars) than the marginal value of an additional Democratic voter to existing Dem constituents. Arguably a hell of a lot higher nowadays, given the increase in both asset and income inequality since Reagan, and the decline of unions that served as an institutional constituency for the Dems.
The GOP doesn’t care if one GOP vote, either at the ballot or in a legislature, “costs” a lot more than one Dem vote, because one of the products the GOP is selling (net transfer of wealth from “labor” to “capital”) has such a wealthy constituency.
Again, why not? In-group loyalty is hard-wired into all of us and wired very very hard indeed into some of us. It is extremely powerful, relatively easy to invoke, and the subject of an enormous amount of empirical research.
As far as I can tell the past few decades of escalating culture-war, red-meat, dog-whistle craziness in the GOP are precisely because the GOP is the party of capital and would not have happened otherwise. Yes, there are plenty of racist, misogynist, nationalist, reactionaries in the USA, but there’s no way they would be at the wheel of one of the two major political parties if the, um, “generous assistance” of the Bidness Community hadn’t paid to organize them.
Rand outsells Chomsky.
What about Tolkien?
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”
Sorry, sometimes you have to drag out well-worn quotes when splaining to a 3-year-old.
Also too:
Well, yeah, but in fairness they work a lot harder than Dems to cultivate that support. Bearing in mind that both parties are in the business of manufacturing consent, the GOP has this much wealthier clientele who demand, and can afford to pay for, “very high quality” consent. More committed, more active, more reliable. Less troublesome, less concerned with actual policy outcomes than with tribal affinity.
The GOP — for legal, institutional, and economic reasons — can’t just pay people to vote Republican. But it can, and does, provide a very high grade of consent. And it does this by providing extra-red meat and extra-engaging storylines to those voting blocs that don’t spend too much time wondering whether their political activities might be impoverishing them in the long run.
Whether the storylines correspond to policy, or even to reality, isn’t important as long as the consent being generated is of high enough quality to support the desired economic policy. The GOP can even position itself as the party of economic and social justice, and does. It just can’t alienate capital by actually implementing policies that would encourage economic justice, or demoralize reactionary voters by (visibly) implementing policies that would result in social equality.
The priests will be paid:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20131005_ap_837a9a9e03794bae8c63d89fbd28728f.html
No refunds, however, for purchasers of “Atlas Shrugged”.
I predict …. well, I’ll tell you after it happens.
The stakes in a debt default, as described by Richard Bove, a well known veteran bank stock analyst, who is somewhat right of center politically from what I’ve been able to tell over the years as I read him in my pursuit of profits in the stock market, which I realize is a radically leftist thing to do to some Orcs out there:
You must be at least 12 years old to view this video and article:
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/u-treasury-default-catastrophic-consequences-explained-170230218.html
The infection, the infestation, has reached critical mass. Nuke from space, maybe we can save the rest of the solar system from murderous, stupid filth:
“Over the past few years, Republicans have terrified their most fervent followers about Obamacare in order to disguise the fact that they no longer knew what to say about their old bête noir, entitlements. Now they can’t turn the temperature down.
Let’s review. Not so very long ago, worrying about entitlements was central to Republican identity. Then, they began to notice that the folks at their rallies looked like the audience for “Matlock” reruns. The base was aging, and didn’t want to change Social Security or Medicare. The base didn’t even want to be reminded that Social Security and Medicare were federal programs…
All over the nation, Tea Party politicians have been telling their most fervid constituents that Obamacare will bring the federal government into the nation’s health system, thus wrecking the wonderful coverage they now enjoy with Medicare. Which comes into their homes through the chimney, where it is dropped by free-enterprise storks.
Representative John Culberson of Texas called Obamacare “a violation of our most sacred right as Americans to be left alone.” This was during an interview with Salon, in which Culberson waxed wroth about the whole idea of any government intervention into health care.
The interviewer, Josh Eidelson, asked, “What does that mean for Medicare, then?”
“What does that mean for Medicare? What does that have to do with anything?” Culberson demanded.
So there you are. It’s not easy leading a political movement that believes the federal government is at the core of all our problems while depending heavily on the votes of citizens who get both their retirement money and health care from the federal government…”
More actions by the reasonable party:
Rushmore blockage stirs anger in S.D.
Note, this isn’t a federal park being closed. It’s one of those scenic lookouts, off a regular road.
This is what the administration is doing, which wasn’t done in past shutdowns: Spending money to shut things which don’t cost money to keep open. The administration is spending extra money during a financial crisis to enhance the damage.
But you’re the reasonable party. Keep telling yourselves that.
the GOP has this much wealthier clientele who demand, and can afford to pay for, “very high quality” consent.
“When Senator Richard M. Burr, a North Carolina Republican, told a reporter that defunding the law was “the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard,” the fund bought a radio ad to attack him. Two other Republican senators up for re-election in 2014, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, were also targeted. Both face Tea Party challengers.”
Good front page NYT article today.
Note the leadership of Edwin Meese III. The Reagan administration just keeps on giving.
Yeah, Meese …
“a regular road”
This is probably either Highway 244, Highway 16 (or Highway 16A) or Highway 385 leading to Mount Rushmore, all of which, if I recall correctly, link to U.S. Interstate I-90.
Certainly, I-90 is not a “regular road”, under your definition of constitutionally “regular”.
We can be sure that all of our federal tax dollars were stolen (not my vocabulary, but the vernacular of the Tea Party, the Republican Party, the John Birch Society, and every yahoo know-nothing extant since “nothing” was invented for them to know) irregularly to construct that highway.
South Dakota is 4th on the list (that may have changed since this particular survey; perhaps they are third today) of federal tax moochers (some high 40s percentage of their state budget is “stolen” from me),
… ttp://madvilletimes.com/2012/12/south-dakota-fourth-largest-red-state-moocher/
… which could make one certain that many of the dollars spent to build these access roads, including the scenic overlook, mentioned above have the sweat of my hard-earned tax dollars embedded in their tarmac.including the scenic overlooks.
I don’t have a cite for that last, but whaddaya say about a $500 bet that I’m right to some substantial degree?
Furthermore, there would be no necessity for any of those highways, beyond whatever washboard wagon paths existed before, if it wasn’t for New Deal financing, the entire edifice of which the Reagan/Meese White House, the Gingrich revolutionaries, including freshman John Boehner, from the 1990s, and the current crop of lovelies, have pledged to their “constituents” in political campaigns that they WILL defund root and branch.
Here’s my compromise counter-proposal:
I want folks who wish to use the highway overlooks to snap pictures of the Mt. Commie non-talking heads of the New Deal Apocalypse to be asked as pull over whether they for the ACA or not and whether they are the current Republican tactic to defund the ACA or (you know the boilerplate).
Those who give the wrong answers (bet ya can’t guess what those might be), will be sent on their way, but not until they are presented a bill to pay me back in full for forcing me at gunpoint to finance those roads and those who give the right answers may stop and click away to their heart’s content.
Those who give the wrong answers may bring out-of-work federal priests along with them in their station wagons and SUVs to pray for photographic opportunities, but I also want federal snipers stationed in the surrounding scenery on duty to terminate any trouble-makers.
Furthermore, on October 17, I want Federal engineers and demolition crews who have been deemed necessary human beings, to begin placing charges on Mount Rushmore (with a big cigar- shaped charge stuck in Lincoln’s stone mouth to provide a little reality TV for the John Wilkes Boothe afficianadoes among the current crop of overweight, diabetic patriot, confederate moochers) and once a month, with simulcast on all major network and cable TV stations, I want one head blown up per week (the destruction of Progressive Teddy Roosevelt’s hard head ought to see ripe audience share in Macon, Georgia, which the late Erick Erickson calls his ratf*cker’s nest) until we’re done with that commie, progressive bullsh*t up there in the Dakotas.
We’ll forgo the whittling down of the mountain to forge an image of Barack Obama flipping the bird to fascist tourists, because who would want to cause hard feelings at this late hour in the Republic?
If these demands are not met, I want the government shut down in perpetuity, the debt defaulted in full, and I want Ted Cruz to station himself on the Washington in front of the Capitol (demolition on that will begin forthwith), pour a gallon of tar sands gasoline over himself and apply a match.
We’ll call it the eternal flame of stupidity.
Once a week for the heads, once a month for the Ted Cruz immolation.
Please forgive all other grammatical errors, including dropped words (trying to make my rants shorter as advised).
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2013_10/mustread_op_of_the_day_colbert047195.php
The cones first went up Oct. 1, said Dusty Johnson, Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s chief of staff. The state asked that they be taken down, and federal officials did so with some of them. The state was told the cones were a safety precaution to help channel cars into viewing areas rather than to bar their entrance.
Outrageous.
““I think reasonable people can disagree about that,” Johnson said.
…
The Buffalo News reported that a tour group of dozens of people from western New York was unable to take pictures of the monument because highway viewing areas were coned off.
“It’s all closed up,” the newspaper quoted North Collins, N.Y., resident Hilde Werneth as saying. “They won’t even let you stop and take a picture. You can only drive by.”
Jim Hagen, secretary of the South Dakota Department of Tourism, said the situation is hurting people from out-of-state and international visitors who are in South Dakota to visit the monument.
“They won’t even let you pull off on the side of the road,” Hagen said. “I just don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish.””
Yes, actually it IS outrageous.
well, duh.
if they let people do that, the road would turn into a fnckign parking lot.
Yes, actually it IS outrageous.
but it’s what your demented clown show of a party demands.
There should be checkpoints on all of the roads leading to Mt. Rushmore to make sure drivers and passengers either have health insurance or are signing up for the health insurance exchanges.
The Rapid City hospital emergency rooms are sick and tired of uninsured out-of-state Tea Party rubberneckers mooching and leeching from the rest of us.
Just in case the whiners don’t understand why cones are orange, here’s a translation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qv7k2_lc0M&list=RD02iwsOI89urnw
From aimai, who once commented here, a germane, but longish post on American sadism (my word):
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-punishers-want-to-run-country-or-we.html
Of all the ways in which the shutdown is screwing with people, what gets the conservative blogosphere worked up is that folks can’t pull off the side of the road and look at Mt Rushmore.
“if they let people do that, the road would turn into a fnckign parking lot.”
The road had a fnckign parking lot next to it where they wanted to pull over.
Russell, the reason this causes such outrage is that shutting down the government always is going to entail at lease SOME trouble for SOME people, as they cease getting things that cost money to provide. And, yes, it’s pretty routine for the administration, if it opposes the shutdown, to chose the most immediately obnoxious things to cease spending money on, so as to rally public opinion against the shutdown.
But spending extra money to shut down things that weren’t costing money, or were even revenue sources? That’s a really novel response to a shutdown, and so contrary to the usual excuse for imposing inconveniences as to make it just too obvious that the administration is deliberately screwing over people.
This is an administration that doesn’t even feel the need for plausible deniablity when it commits outrages. That’s somewhat new in American politics.
Well, I am for an (almost*) all-or-nothing here. Either shutdown or not with no thought, whether it’s revenue positive, neutral or negative. I have yet to hear GOP complaints about the IRS being understaffed or the tax fraud hunters taken off the trail. If it’s about the power of the purse, then anything that brings money in should be on top of the shutdown list not the bottom. It’s supposed to hurt as much as possible. It’s a scandal that air traffic controllers are exempted just because it would inconvenience the ‘wrong’ people otherwise. You wanna shutdown? Then hire your own private guards out of your own pocket and have water, gas, and electricity switched off in all federal buildings that are not housing emergency services.
*i.e. except for actual life-or-death stuff
the most immediately obnoxious things to cease spending money on
They closed the national parks. Guess what? If there’s a government service that qualifies as non-essential, it’s the national parks.
If they were interested in causing maximum pain, I suspect there is a list of about 1,372 things they could readily have come up with that would have caused one great big giant shit-ton of pain greater than closing the national parks.
They could have sent all of the air traffic controllers home. No planes. That would make a dent.
Mt Rushmore scenic overlook? Not really a big deal. Really, it’s not.
I don’t know why they closed off the scenic overlook. Maybe they figured, hey, we have to close Rushmore, and everybody’s going to park over there and cause a problem. I have no idea.
I’m sure we’ll find out more in the days ahead.
What I am ABSOLUTELY SURE of is that, if the goal was to maximize pain from the shutdown, putting cones in front of a scenic overlook at Mt Rushmore was not a great choice.
And yes, amazingly enough, it costs money to shut down operations of any kind. I have, oddly enough, two family members who had fabulous careers shutting down (a) defense aviation plants and (b) auto assembly plants, as those industries either wound down or shifted to other regions of the country.
The reason they were able to make careers of those projects was that they’re amazingly complicated things to do. It’s expensive, and complicated, and a generally great big PITA to wind down operations of anything bigger than a popsicle stand.
That’s why it’s a stupid, wasteful, expensive, inefficient, idiotic, counter-productive piece of ass-backwards bullsh*t to use the continuing resolution as a policy bargaining chip.
Because you end up pissing away valuable resources to accomplish nothing, nada, zip.
The House (R)’s are @ssholes.
Seriously, on one hand you applaud the House (R)’s for using the shutdown as a bargaining tactic, and on the other hand you’re all wound up because — shocking as it may sound — shutting down government services is a stupid expensive waste of time.
WTF did you think a government shutdown was going to look like?
Closing off a scenic overlook at Mt Rushmore is freaking noise. Even talking about this like it’s an issue of any consequence is stupid.
According to PPP, if the election was today, the R’s would lose the House.
According to a long article in the Times, the decision to shut down the government was made by the R party shadow leadership (Koch bros and friends) two years ago. Not a surprise to me. In fact I thought it was obvious that there were R politicians just salivating for the chance to self=aggrandize over a shut down, just as they have been salivating over imaginary impeachment issues.
Crazy, stupid, and mean. And profoundly un-American. To the point of being nearly treasonous.
“Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) insisted Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that he won’t bring up a “clean” debt limit increase under any circumstances, warning that the U.S. will default on its debt unless President Barack Obama agrees to make policy concessions.”
From Talking Points Memo. If accurate, then I think Boehner is coming close to treasonous behavior.
But spending extra money to shut down things that weren’t costing money, or were even revenue sources?
Revenue is irrelevant when you’re not allowed to spend. It’s not a question of how something nets out. It’s a matter of not being allowed to continue spending money on things. And, yes, it might cost you some money in the short term to shut things down.
The only reason this whole park thing is important to Brett is that stupid, right-wing outlets are pushing it as something people like him are supposed to be upset about. That’s not mind-reading, either. It’s an observation.
I think Boehner is coming close to treasonous behavior.
It is treasonous. It’s a coup. Let’s not pretend that the Republicans aren’t there yet. They’re there.
trea·son
1.betrayal of country: a violation of the allegiance owed by somebody to his or her own country, e.g. by aiding an enemy.
2.treachery: betrayal or disloyalty
3.act of betrayal: an act of betrayal or disloyalty
Other definitions refer to over throw of the government or aiding the enemy.
I was referring to the possible default an the economic disruptions which would follow. I think that forcing a disaster upon the country, not as a well intentioned mistake, but as a deliberate act, may qualify as treason. It’s certainly a betrayal of the responsibilities of a Congressman, a violation of allegiance. Congress people have some sort of oath of office they take.
However, I don’t think it will happen. I just think that it should be known widely that some of the Republicans in Congress, including a leader, contemplated treason.
This is an administration that doesn’t even feel the need for plausible deniablity when it commits outrages. That’s somewhat new in American politics.
Really, Brett? New? Really? This is a truly incredible display of myopia, if you consider even just the eight years preceding the current regime taking power.
“That’s somewhat new in American politics.”
My dear, innocent man-child.
Ah, the delicious chickenshit hedge of that word “somewhat”. Or, is it a vague doppler-like blinking of sanity from far out on the limb as the chainsaw squeals.
Ladies and gentleman, we’ve found our 4-year old.
Keep him away from lj’s daughter.
Brett, is this you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGzS5dd0dT0
Or this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsgPJDeWyzI
Hmmm:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPwifU7xbsI
Yikes!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p77GnlVJyQ8
I’ve been watching this stuff for the last couple of hours.
Here’s the thing: give ignoramuses and their ignoramus representatives in the ignoramus caucus what they crave.
Sapient is correct.
When the House of Representatives and its shills in the media shut down the government and default on the debt on October 17 (and because Federal funds are roughly 47% of South Dakota’s budget, a few closed scenic overlooks are going to be just below what’s-for-dinner on the priority list as the South Dakota National Guard goes into action), President Obama should declare martial law on a national basis, place all military bases here and abroad on the fullest alert, and order the arrest and confinement in FEMA camps (give it to them good and hard) of all Republican House and Senate members who vote to carry out the destruction of the United States.
Send federal troops to secure all federal installations, including highways, dams, and airports in the states and districts these enemies were mutated from.
Arrest and disappear all Republican governors and statehouse Republicans.
Arm and deputize all Native American reservations with the promise, written in republican blood, that they may, after counting deadly coup throughout the countryside, keep all land and property now occupied by the surrounding republican populations.
The federal troops should bring food, shelter and healthcare to the tens of millions of Americans these Republican murderous bug filth are trying to kill.
Confiscate all tin foil in these states and districts, because these numb nuts won’t need it anymore as their fondest nightmares show up at the front door.
This warning is brought to you by the National United Front of 5-Year-Olds, because when 4-year-olds with deadly weaponry go off their ka-zipps, who better to take the safeties off, slam in the clips and restore order.
Use that photo of the deranged (like our current crop of crazies, he was sane in his younger days), neck-bearded John Calhoun for target practice, kids.
Remember, as the apocalypse unfolds and the government is destroyed, VA loans from intergalactic space will still be available with nothing down:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_Jv7hh772s
Watch out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYdOwI0jjco
If you are done yet with “Atlas Shrugged”, here’s more long-winded crapola from the other half of the Republican Party’s armed, deadly constituency:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmNge7vZ-gY
See, they are wrong.
I am the Beast.
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree
and the virgins are trimming their wicks
The whirlwind is in the thorn tree
and its hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
But I’m going to kick prick ass.
“According to PPP, if the election was today, the R’s would lose the House.”
I don’t doubt that for a moment. This is one of those situations where you either finish the job, or you don’t dare start. Having started down this path, they MUST keep on it until they win some kind of major concession, or they’re toast, it will have been all pain, no gain.
At the moment you’ve got most of the media screaming about how horrible it’s all going to be. The Republican hope is that, as the standoff continues, people will start discounting the media screaming in favor of their own personal experience.
It’s rather like the sequester: In advance we were told it would be horrible. Now it’s become the new baseline for spending. That wouldn’t have happened if they’d given up after a week.
so the Republican plan is to hope that favorable anecdotes will minimize their leverage.
brilliant.
I think that forcing a disaster upon the country, not as a well intentioned mistake, but as a deliberate act, may qualify as treason.
Rightly or wrongly, the Cruz crowd views ACA as a “disaster upon the country”, even if it was a “well intentioned mistake”. Both the left and the right view any accommodation as surrender. Sure, there is no equivalency: a flat refusal to negotiate meaningfully on other budgetary issues is nothing but high principle.
Having started down this path, they MUST keep on it until they win some kind of major concession, or they’re toast
Government by middle school playground rules. Fabulous.
It’s rather like the sequester: In advance we were told it would be horrible. Now it’s become the new baseline for spending.
For starters:
But if you’re not one of those folks, or one of the other hundreds of thousands or millions of folks whose lives have been impacted by the sequester, it’s all good.
And hey, let’s have some more of that, because we have to be respected!!!
Flaming @ssholes. Really, just a pack of flaming childish preening @ssholes.
You support this horsesh*t Brett?
Rightly or wrongly, the Cruz crowd views ACA as a “disaster upon the country”
The “rightly or wrongly” part here is IMO kind of significant.
Don’t you think?
Or are we in some kind of “all points of view are equally valid” territory?
We’re talking about the shutdown – the expensive, counter-productive, inefficient shutdown – of public goods and services. Next week we’ll be talking about federal financial default.
It seems to me that it behooves us to discern between the “rightly” and the “wrongly”.
Some people actually are bone-ignorant, or full of crap, or just generally flaming @ssholes. It doesn’t mean they aren’t allowed to come to dinner, but it also doesn’t mean none of the rest of us get to eat if they don’t happen to like asparagus.
I know that this is a bit of a point with you, McT, but I wonder if you discern that this might not have gone so far had the president not been African-American? Or how opposing the ACA seems to map interestingly on a particular subset of states?
To be sure, much of the arguments against the ACA are rooted in the fear that the act will be a nail in the coffin of the United States as we know it and lead to an insurmountable increase of national debt: but the paranoiac fear that its perpetration is so short-sighted that it is intended to prevent a return to smaller government has deeper roots.
Some remarkably disturbing data there.
but the paranoiac fear that its perpetration is so short-sighted that it is intended to prevent a return to smaller government has deeper roots.
someone needs to ask these paranoiac pinheads if they want to give up their SS or Medi*. if they say no, then nobody ever needs to give a crap about what they say about the size of the government, ever again.
Ladies and gentlemen, the party of fiscal responsibility:
“I think, personally, it would bring stability to the world markets” Ted Yoho, R, FL.
but i’m sure, once the GOP’s talking points get going, Brett will be here to tell us that it’s the Dems who want the default.
(“it” = US default)
The Democrats have been willing to compromise. They’ve done it over and over and over. The sequester, the core idea of the ACA…
It is not an intellectually honest argument to claim the Democrats have been unwilling to compromise. They didn’t stand their ground–our ground, the ground that is in the nations’s best interests–until the Republicans crossed the line into the shut down, which is intended to sabotage the legislative process, and threats of default, which is treasonous.
It isn’t an honest mistake to threaten default. For one thing the Wall Street types that the upper echelons of the party are vey beholden to are phoning up what ever Republican they can reach and telling them not to default. The Chamber of Commerce is telling them not to do it and offering to back Republican legislators that get Tea Party primary challengers.
But also people are responsible for doing their jobs. The Republicans who are threatening to push the nation into default are the same people, or are setting right next to the same Republicans, who routinely raised the debt ceiling for Bush even as they cut taxes and increased spending.
So there’s no possibility of an honest mistake. It’s just Republican politicians doing what they do, in this case contemplating reason.
Fortunately more and more voters are finely seeing them as they are. Even Beltway pundits, usually the last people to understand American politics, are getting a clue.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/shorting-out-the-wiring/?_r=0
Granted this is Krugman and he suffers from having genuine expertise, which to Beltway pundits, makes him shrill.
Shorter version: For many decades the corporate media has presented the Republicans as the party of competence, but finally that delusion has been broken by such repeated outstanding displays of incompetence that even Beltway pundits have to notice.
It’s likely, though, that the corporate media will develop the meme that it is the Tea Party that is incompetent and that the rest of the Republican party is fine, jus the good old solid mainstream party of Eisenhower. Which it isn’t. The Democrats are the mainstream solid party of Eisenhower. Even with the Tea Party assholes driven out, the Republicans would still be the Robber Baron global warming denying hate and fear-mongering vote suppressing budget-busting austerity bombers.
McKT wrote:
“. Both the left and the right view any accommodation as surrender. Sure, there is no equivalency: a flat refusal to negotiate meaningfully on other budgetary issues is nothing but high principle.”
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/10/07/the-democrats-already-compromised/
Democrats are also willing to negotiate and compromise on tax issues, as in reining in deductions and loopholes.
Too bad we can’t bring perjury charges on the Internet.*
*Then McKT could join me in jail. Minimum security …. wine and goose liver pate brought in under cover during the laundry pickup ….
But still, c’mon!
As it is, I’ll allow your statement to be struck from the record and instruct the jury to disregard your words.
Once again, the stakes, from those conservatives in the markets who know:
http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post–us-default-seen-as-catastrophe-dwarfing-lehmans-fall
They leave out the violence that will befall the Republican Party following the catastrophe.
The victims’ list is published in the Congressional Record for every vote.
Remember the one about the husband and wife who both wanted the pie, so the husband suggested they each eat half, and the wife then said, “Let’s compromise, and I’ll eat three quarters.”? (It’s not my joke, so I accept no responsibility for any sexism. It’s just conceptually apropos here. See, the Republicans are like the wife in the joke and…blaaaaaauuuuuuugggggghhhhhh)
Speculation by Eric Posner on the President’s options should the Republican order him to default ion the debt.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115034/debt-ceiling-3-ways-obama-could-circumvent-congress
The link is taken from this Sullivan post:
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/10/07/the-impeachment-scenario/
Regarding the possibility of impeachment, I believe the President should take whatever action that MAXIMIZES the chance of impeachment by the House Republicans, and then on to the Senate.
In addition to spending time on YouTube with the crypto-religious Obama haters, I’ve been viewing dozens of videos of the government-hating, gun-loving Obama-haters.
A Constitutional crisis involving debt default, impeachment proceedings, and a President who refuses to step down, as Obama should do if he is impeached, will bring the armed vigilantes to Washington D.C. where they can be dealt with at one time, as expeditiously possible, on THEIR terms.
Too bad the government won’t have any money to clean up their remains.
I look forward to a return of buzzards over D.C.
I hope the scenic turn-off photographers don’t order the seafood pupu platter in Rapid City this week.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/10/what-the-us-government-has-to-do-with-your-popcorn-shrimp/280327/
Stick with the fresh-caught trout.
I’d hate to see a guy whining to NewsMax suddenly sieze up from stomach cramps.
“Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) insisted Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that he won’t bring up a “clean” debt limit increase under any circumstances, warning that the U.S. will default on its debt unless President Barack Obama agrees to make policy concessions.”
From Talking Points Memo. If accurate, then I think Boehner is coming close to treasonous behavior.
Laura, of course Boehner has to say that. Especially if he actually is going to bring up a clean debt ceiling bill for a floor vote. If he admitted now that he would bring such a bill to a vote, he would be out as Speaker instantly. And we would have a new Speaker who would say it and mean it.
So what he has to do is keep saying that, right up until he has a clean debt ceiling bill from the Senate. Then he can exercise his authority as Speaker to bring that bill to a vote and get it passed. One could actually make a case that to fail to keep saying what he is saying (and thus make default much more likely) would be all the nasty kinds of betrayal that you (and others) have been accusing him of.
(Of course, I may be giving him too much credit. But we will know one way or the other in a couple more weeks.)
An interesting article on a CEO, whose publicly traded company is heavily involved in setting up on-line state health insurance exchanges under the ACA, and who will finally be able to purchase health care insurance after being denied for years by Republican Death Panels.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-amazon-of-health-insurance-2013-08-21?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
How you are in it, even if you think you are not:
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/10/07/how-your-neighbors-insurance-covers-you/
I hope lj’s daughter hasn’t been tuning out to these explanations with her Ipod ear buds in, or we’re just going to have to start over.
While we’re civilly discussing the nuances of Republican treason and who is going to take their Party back, here comes the first wave of armed, violent Republican murderers to Washington D.C.
I hope no one’s daughter gets caught up in their explanations, but if your daughters are anywhere near, they should wear bullet-proof vests.
Try as I might while I was perusing Republican heavy weapon videos to be used against government, including the President of the United States, all Democrats, liberals, feminazis, blacks, Jews, immigrants, and the gay variants of all of the above, I couldn’t locate a single video of a liberal wielding firepower for my side.
So, we know where the murderous filth reside: in the Republican Party.
They are legion.
The “It” girl expands on “it”.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bachmann-end-times-are-coming-because-obama-is-supporting-al-qaeda
She represents.
Could Jesurgislac please show up and testify to the absolutely classic Slartiness of that statement.
*appears*
Confirmed.
*disappears*
“who was that masked woman….?”
hey jes!!
De-lurk! De-lurk! My kingdom for a… um, er… Aw, hell… just de-lurk (please).
“here come the first wave of …”
and here comes the link:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/truckers-for-the-constitution-plan-to-arrest-congressmen-100713
Well, jes, I guess that leaves me only two wishes.
Could Hilzoy please now appear and confirm there is still a world out there?
I love seances.
ok, but who get to play “cottonmouth” wallace?
Fun to see Jes delurking. Do it again every now and then (every five years or so, but I’d prefer more often.)
“It is not an intellectually honest argument to claim the Democrats have been unwilling to compromise.”
That’s putting it mildly. I know we all live in our own little cocoons, but the notion that Obama is some hardline lefty unwilling to compromise has me sitting here laughing hysterically with tears rolling down–okay, I’m not actually doing that, but I’d have every right. That’s the fundamental brilliance of this Tea Party strategy, if it doesn’t cause a catastrophe–they just keep pushing the Overton Window further and further to the right. We’ll be so grateful if fiscal doomsday doesn’t happen that if Obama agrees to a few more seniors eating catfood while a few rich people pay slightly higher taxes, we’ll all be cheering, and the Tea Party people will sincerely think they’ve been sold out to the Kenyan Marxist proponent of Sharia law.
McKinneyTexas: “Rightly or wrongly, the Cruz crowd views ACA as a “disaster upon the country”, even if it was a “well intentioned mistake”. Both the left and the right view any accommodation as surrender. Sure, there is no equivalency: a flat refusal to negotiate meaningfully on other budgetary issues is nothing but high principle.”
This is false, pure and simple.
Meanwhile, the convoy failed to appear.
Rubber ducky shed a tear.
but they did manage to needlessly blow some taxpayer money!
good job, small government conservatives.
From Russell’s link:
******* “This is the first movement,” Lacovara said. “I would be making up a number if I guessed how many trucks are out here. I can just tell you we have a healthy group and an even healthier group on the way.” ******
Ah, c’mon, throw a number out there. Was it more than 20? 30? A smidgen under 40?
Under Obamacare, pre-existing hemorrhoids suffered by independent, entrepreneurial truckers who formerly could not afford health insurance are covered.