On the one hand, we have me, Levin, McCarthy, Cafe Hayek, and a whole crowd of extreme ideological purists who Don’t Understand The Realities of DC; on the other, we have Huckabee, Karl Rove, inside the Beltway GOP “realists” and the more “pragmatic” GOP’s rank and file cheerleaders (or, if you prefer, optimists).
And — after reading the comments here — it’s clear that never the twain shall meet.
OUTLAW party, here I come.
****
update: “Bachmann Voted Against $39 Billion Deal”:
After the deal was struck Friday night, Bachmann voted against a stopgap meaure that will keep the federal government operating until final details in the budget deal can be hammered out, Politico reports. A final vote on the deal should come by the middle of next week. Bachmann says she also will vote against that.
“The deal that was reached tonight is a disappointment for me and for millions of Americans who expected $100 billion in cuts, who wanted to make sure their tax dollars stopped flowing to the nation’s largest abortion provider, and who wanted us to defund Obamacare,” she said in a statement issued to the media.
“Allen West: No to Spending Cut Deal”:
The bipartian agreement will slice $38.5 billion in federal spending, but West says that’s not enough, Politico reports. So he says he will vote against the measure when it arrives in Capitol Hill sometime next week. Congress approved a stopgap measure after the budget deal to keep the federal government operating until final details in the budget deal can be hammered out.
“It’s all about the money,” said West (R-Fla.).
Listening to Levin’s appearance on Cavuto, it’s not even clear if what the GOP leadership netted was $38 billion in additional cuts — or if this deal includes the cuts made in the first two CRs.
I suspect the latter.
rsm
link
Yes, Yes, I know it appears that I’m pissing on your head, but really, it’s just rain
The GOP leadership is stuck. They don’t have the Senate or WH. They don’t have the media. They have the popular support, which is still strong even in places like Wisconsin. They’re trying to keep that support without alienating people who turned on them in 1994. Remember the Shutdown was turning point in Clinton’s favor, and the GOP doesn’t want the same thing to happen with Obama.
There are political points to be made here on the GOP side. If the GOP is smart. They avoid the shutdown, but they have the Democrats acting like demagogues, saying the GOP wants to kill women. They should use these in ads in 2012 to win the Senate, the White House, and solidify the majority in the House.
So long as there are Democrats in control of a legislative or executive body, the GOP is stuck battling the media-supported bomb-throwers like Schumer, Grayson, Pelosi. They’re also stuck with President SaysALotofShitButDoesNothing, who’s more than happy to attack individuals, previous administrations, while bungling everything in the White House.
Yes, I agree with Levin that the GOP caved. They’re in a lose-lose situation. They keep the gov’t working, they lose. They shut down the non-essential government operations, they lose. They don’t cut enough, they lose. They cut too much, they lose.
The political goal here is to take their lumps, still work on the big issues (Ryan’s Path to Prosperity), without giving away the store. The the RNC needs to start with radio ads, web ads, print ads, and just remind people that the budget mess is squarely on the shoulders of the Democrats. They need to organize.
The GOP picked up two Senate seats and kept the House. There was no FOXNews, no blogosphere, very little conservative talk radio.
They should worry more about alienating the people who voted them in than worry about how the media will portray them. The can count on the latter, but if they aren’t careful they’ll assure the former, as well.
The GOP was NOT in a lose-lose situation. 10 days worth of cuts is what they managed. Is this okay with the average American? Does it count as fiscal discipline? Here’s an idea: POSE THE QUESTIONS AND MAKE THE CASE!
I am so tired of the rationalizations. Honestly: how in the fuck can we sit back and preach about smaller government and fiscal responsibility, then pretend it will be the end of the world if the fucking bloated, overspending federal government sends home non-essential employees for a few days?
The Dems GAVE THE GOP a perfect club to hit them with: Obama just sent Americans to war — in Libya, for Chrissakes — and then he declares he won’t pay them, something that both Clinton and Reagan managed to do during shut downs.
WELFARE CHECKS would go out. MILITARY PAY would not. And that is OBAMA and the DEM’S CHOICE!
Christ. Can’t anybody here play this game??
All I can say is now they better push through Ryan’s plan for next year’s budget; no excuses or concessions…
the one thing that the stupid party should start working on is privatizing most of the national parks service. why give the proggs made to order sob stories for a gov’t shutdown.
BR I’d say pass the Republican Study Group budget; they can compromise to the Ryan Budget until we get a conservative Senate & President.
We can beat them with the club all we want, but it’s April 2011. If you beat them with the same club for 20 months, nobody’s going to pay attention. The American voting public goes through election exhaustion. You have to choose when you hit these guys for maximum opinion impact.
So far, we have the Democrats:
1) Fighting a minor reduction in the year’s record fiscal deficit by demanding smaller reductions, and claiming fiscal responsibility (all ignored by the MSM).
2) Launching a war for oil (and mostly European oil) in Libya in a completely half-assed fashion. All the while the MSM has been quite supportive of the limp-dick military intervention.
3) Storming a state capital, comparing the governor to Hitler, and complaining about having the benefits of unionized public employees removed. An activist judge has acted outside of her boundaries to stop legislation that is perfectly legal.
4) Democratic legislators choosing to support Planned Parenthood over US Military Personnel.
5) Democratic legislators claiming the GOP wants to kill women with cancer. (During the age of civility, natch.)
6) A President who’s budget was laughed out of Congress by both sides.
7) A Senate which hasn’t been able to produce a Democrat budget alternative to the House. Not a CR alternative– a budget alternative.
8) A President who ignores the rising cost of oil by encouraging Brazil to drill oil.
And the list goes on and on….
The GOP should be floating Web Ads on all of these ideas. Sure it’s fun to make fun of Obama with rainbows and unicorns, but there’s so much substantive policy that can be used to hit the Democrats. The GOP can make huge gains in 2012, but it’s got to be smart. If they don’t play smart, they risk backlash and fumbling a chance to take the Senate.
And there are enough issues with the GOP Presidential Field (currently) to make me worry about a return of Obama for a second term.
Yeah, that’s what they told Reagan, too.
They were wrong.
I’m reminded of the movie Colors, where Robert Duvall says, “There’s two bulls standing on top of a mountain. The younger one says to the older one: “Hey pop, let’s say we run down there and fuck one of them cows”. The older one says: “No son. Lets walk down and fuck ’em all”.”
We’re fighting Loochers who have all that we have, and the gift of government freebies. That will pass soon enough, catastrophically. This one’s pretty good at his game…
Oh, OT, but Sidney Lumet, Serpico director, died today.
I’m optimistic. I think Republicans won last night. The overall plan is to put in Ryan’s budget, and keep it working. Doing too much too fast is problematic. It’s the government. It can’t change overnight. Keep the Republicans working towards Tea Party goals. Don’t let them cave to Democratic spending plans. If we do this, we’ll win. It’ll take a long time (we hit fiscal solvency with Ryan’s plan in 2050). But it will work.
“If we make it
to 2050through December…”It’s a slog, but for the first time in my life the budget is headed in the right direction, actually down not just a cut of the “expected” yearly increase. That is to the good. Did I want more, [url=https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=26593#comment-1090103]yes[/url]. Not just spending cuts but reform of taxes and regulations to get the economy moving.
It took the progressives quite awhile to get where they wished in 2008. They had two other ones they mostly blew, Carter and Clinton. It will not take the Tea Party as long to take this back as they don’t have to hide/mask/lie about everything they do as something else.
Keep up the pressure on the Republicans and primary the ones that don’t get with the program. The Ryan budget plan is the litmus test, the minimum required for the new budget year. The 2010 election was a good start, 2012 is for the gold.
Oh shoot. Setting up a new system and forgot to set the “Text Formatting Toolbar to HTML nor BB code.
Keep in mind that the Republicans who voted against this did so because the party could afford for them to do so. Obviously, once they had the votes to get this done, anyone with aspirations for higher office was going to be excused from voting for it, in order to position themselves to the right of Boehner. Yet he still managed to exploit the Dems’ ineptness by getting cuts to a budget that Obama was trying to increase. Plus, one of the concessions was getting Reid to put ObamaCare to another vote, which will refresh that issue in the voters’ minds.
We need to look after the long game, which is next year’s elections for the White House and the Senate–that’s the goal.
“We need to look after the long game, which is next year’s elections for the White House and the Senate–that’s the goal”
so the goal is get the cocktail party back in power? i’ll pass on that.
speaking of the cocktail party, turns petey wehner self identifies as a rube:
link
Wait until they compromise on entitlement reform. Will we be worried about the long game then, when we’re going down the toilet? Real reform is always somewhere down the road with these jokers.
Which we can best do by trying to hide our principles from the public.
WINNING!
Boehner blinked and the beleaguered taxpayer loses.
We’re fucked. That’s the beginning and end of it. Crybaby Boner cannot get voted out soon enough. He’s another establishment hack. Too bad we don’t have anyone worth electing who can get elected for president in 2012.
Too much? You mean like, cutting eleven days worth of spending instead of ten?
I heard on Monica Crowley’s show this morning that the Obamites shorted the actual deficit — that it’s really more like $1.72 trillion. That’s what, a $70 billion accounting error? The GOP fought the good fight and took $38 billion off of that.
Too much too fast?
Honestly, I don’t know what’s wrong with you people? No wonder we own most of the facts and yet the progressives control all the institutions and the entirety of the narrative. When push comes to shove, we’re simply a bunch of pussies.
Yeah, I’m reminded of that, too.
I just don’t like being one of the cows.
Shit. Lumet was one of my favorite directors.
“Doing too much too fast is problematic”
not for proggs
Does it not occur to people that Obama tried to increase the budget after the November shellacking so that he could call whatever cuts were proposed by the GOP “draconian”?
Unlike Boehner, he started high.
The Dems evidently know how to negotiate. We began with a promise number, moved to a lower number and a proclamation that we wouldn’t shut down the government, and ended with cuts that are dwarfed by a rounding error. And people are fucking cheering this?
It’s ridiculous. Watching all these bloggers and pundits playing it like they are coolly analyzing the situation and, from an objective distance — free from ideological bias — they see a solid deal for the GOP.
And? FUCK THE GOP! We need solid deals for us, the people. The TEA Party is not made up solely of Republicans. For chrissakes, we have an opportunity to marginalize both political parties and take back this country, and the fucking GOP is worried about the press coverage and optics, and the “conservative” opinion leaders are blowing sunshine up our asses rather than taking the message to the American people. THIS CAN’T BE SUSTAINED!
The proggs just raped us. And many of you seem to think that because they pulled out and didn’t take your watch and wallet that you won something.
The Left has their own war going.
GOP leadership is getting consistently outplayed by Harry Reid.
Harry. Fucking. Reid.
The only thing on any of your minds right now should be, “How fucking stupid are these people?”
They’re trying to keep that support without alienating people who turned on them in 1994.
Why do people keep forgetting that Clinton was elected because of Ross Perot?
And that there was no looming debt crisis at the time?
And that Clinton was an obvious scumbag but Obama makes him look like a saint?
And that the Internet and Talk Radio and Fox didn’t exist so much in 1994?
And that we’re not riding a tech bubble or a housing bubble or any other bubble (except the general illusion of prosperity) to make people too complacent to care?
And that the Middle East is on fire, and we had no 9/11 or crisis on our southern border or union thugs occupying capitols or ACORN scandals or George Soros or radicals in the White House or China Rising or anything like that?
A pox upon all their houses for a thousand generations.
It’s a slog, but for the first time in my life the budget is headed in the right direction, actually down not just a cut of the “expected” yearly increase.
Sorry man but this is just goddamn offensive to me.
Neither of us strike me as that naive.
It is not – the budget is $30B less the amount Obama wanted to increase the budget over what he got from democrats in 2010.
We elected a House of Republicans to cut the budget, and the budget has increased further.
All the rest is spin.
Oh really? Then why doesn’t that work in the republican’s favor?
If “you didn’t pay the troops” line gets old after 20 months, then why the *bleep* doesn’t the “you shut the government down, killing women and children” line get old?
I guess you’d claim while getting anally raped that you were at least having sex.
They should worry more about alienating the people who voted them in than worry about how the media will portray them.
I want them to worry more about the mountainside we’re about to slam into, not on whether their ties are straight.
Steyn, as usual, is The Man:
And here:
Which one of the pundits said that we’re not going to actually cut anything in reality until we get rid of actual gubmint agencies such as the Dept. of Education or Labor, because you can cut today, but they’ll just expand tomorrow, as the iron-clad ratchet effect of bureaucracies continues its inexorable march.
These people have never grown a garden, obviously. You can run a mower over the weeds but that doesn’t stop them for more than a day. As long as the root is alive, they’ll take every inch of ground they can find until they’ve choked out everything else.
We need to look after the long game, which is next year’s elections for the White House and the Senate–that’s the goal
No, the long game is the country not turning into a third-world banana republic after our currency becomes toilet paper and we drag the rest of the world along with us (though Europe will most likely go first). It’s entirely possible that it’s too late to avoid even that, that we hit the iceberg years ago and we’re only beginning to tip nose-first into the freezing Atlantic.
So let them badger the string quartet about whether to play “Nearer, My God, to Thee” or “Happy Days Are Here Again.” Me, I’m clambering aboard a life raft with my canned soup and toilet paper and as much reading material as I can carry.
link
this long game or ultimate endgame what is it exactly?
Entropy:
I was under the impression that the continuing resolutions that the government has been operating under for these past months were only allowed to keep funding at the same level that they had had previously and so any cuts from that would be real cuts and not just slower growth. I guess I was mistaken in that.
Also, there is no studio version of Clapton’s original “Layla” on iTunes, nor is there any Def Leppard to be found except by homage bands.
The world really does deserve to go down in flames.
Sorry, but that’s how it is.
Try Amazon, dicentra. Layla is there, and I’d bet Def Leppard is there too.
Oops, the one I saw will not be released until the 26th.
is there a muzak version of layla on itunes?
Found “Layla” on Amazon, thanks! Blowing the speakers with it now.
Amazon only has tribute bands for Def Leppard, too. Am I supposed to be impressed that they haven’t “sold out” or should I continue to curse them for not making themselves accessible to little old me?
is there a muzak version of layla on itunes?
The acoustic version is. Got that too. Best recasting of a rock song in history, you ask me.
link
“Republican House is only 1/2 of 1/3 of the government
that’s a stupid way to look at this situation boner. you’re 3rd in line for baraky’s seat and you control what gets spent. dick morris was right: the fool should have ditched the cr and sent separate spending bills for the rest of 2011 for each cabinet agency. let baraky and harry own the gov’t.
“Republican House is only 1/2 of 1/3 of the government”
good way to minimize your culpability boner
“Republican House is only 1/2 of 1/3 of the government”
And has the power to initiate or terminate spending bills.
Morons.
heck boner should have taken one of clinton’s post ’96 budgets (adjusted for inflation) and sent it to reid and baraky. let them demagogue the 1st “black” precedent.
Well, even the folks running Ace of Spades seem to be quite satisfied with this historic victory. The problem is the GOP can’t do much, which the GOP supporters keep reminding the pessimists. Yet, if they can’t do much, than this cannot really be much of a victory. Can’t have it both ways.
While it’s difficult to become excited about a cut in spending less than a rounding error in the budget, are not the other measures, like forcing an up-or-down vote (if Reid keeps his promise) on Hellcare in the Senate, purely symbolic? Symbolism has its place too. What that is precisely is open to debate. However, note this today from the Daily Caller:
…federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and National Public Radio survived an 11th hour deal on a spending bill to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year.
The continuation of funding for public broadcasting is one of several significant victories for Democrats regarding the policy riders in the bill still emerging 12 hours after Democratic and Republican leaders struck a deal to avert government shutdown.
Another Democratic victory: of dozens of riders included in a House-passed spending bill curtailing strict new environmental regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency, zero were included in the final deal.
So the Democrats get their symbolic victories too, do they not? Far too many conservatives are patting themselves on the back because they see steam coming out of Markos Moulitsas’s and Lawrence O’Donnell’s ears. Perhaps the best measure of success may not be the temper tantrums of enemies who have temper tantrums over matters smaller than toenail clippings falling to the right. Those fuming on the Left now will come home to Barry in a week. This is a foregone conclusion. No one knows what the “independents” think.
There was the mere extension of the Bush tax rates for two short years and a payroll tax cut for only one, and the conservative elites told us that was a grand victory. This is another one, we hear; a victory that cuts ten days or so of government borrowing. With victories like this we will have matters under control in a century or five.
John Cole wore out the backsides of Sully, Brooksie and Klein-bobber today. It’s been RT’d all around the proggiesphere.
You know where I stand on spending, and I’d dance a jig if they straight up fired 3/4 of the people on the federal payroll…excepting the military. Who stood to not get paid. So we could protect Planned Parenthood.
That’s not to mention the fact that we look like even more of a country of buffoons when we’re budgeting from week to week, or not at all. American exceptionalism is in critical condition.
LMA,
Yes, especially the Senate. Boehner is right about being 1/2 of 1/3 of the government. There’s only so much they can do. We need the Senate and we’ll get it next year if we don’t do anything stupid.
I’m not in love with this deal, but what I’m even less in love with is the rhetoric. These cowards need to start breathing some righteous fire. Bachmann and Paul can teach them how to do it. I’m liking Marco Rubio, among others. We put good seeds in the ground in November. Let’s not try to gobble them up just yet, shall we? We’re not done. We’re just getting started.
Let’s focus our energies on the next battle, which is the 2012 primaries. Unless you’re cool with Fuckabee, which, ewwwww.
institutional memory is over rated: see boner, john
Cole suggested Paul Krugman is a thinker.
I stopped reading there.
Then when Steyn was on Rush on April 1, a woman called into say that every time the Dems reject a GOP cut, the GOP should come back with an even-higher amount of cuts, saying, “take it now or it will just get worse.”
Of course, that would require the additional support of overwhelming public opinion and some steel in their own spines, so forget it. No reason to bluff if you can’t do it convincingly.
“There’s only so much they can do.”
but boner’s doing little only of so much. where are the bold colors, all i see is pale pastels from the cocktail party. if the rovester & bushpeeps are for it i’m against it.
BTW, where’s sdferr of late? He go on walkabout?
This hardly strikes me as surprising. From out here on the lunatic fringe.
I haven’t read enough Cole to know how to interpret this:
Oh, and by the way- Palin was lying about death panels and DWS wasn’t about death traps. But you knew that, right?
Straight or sarcastic? Can’t tell.
Like piss off the people who brought you back to power in the House by proving that you’ll only do what they ask if the Dems promise not to make it uncomfortable for you?
These guys are so mired in politics that they’ve lost sight of who they represent and why they’re there.
Acting like grownups while the leftists were shrieking about how you want to starve the elderly and kill women might have actually sold. Imagine!
But we’ll never know. Instead, hey: let’s celebrate the fact that we may have remained just impotent enough that we didn’t cause any ripples in public consciousness! Come 2012, if we don’t say shit, maybe we win in a landslide!
“that would require the additional support of overwhelming public opinion and some steel in their own spines”
that’s why you draw the line in the sand right after an election. the official polling has been done.
This is why they need to set the table. The Overton window needs moving, and they’re not going to do that by doing….whatever the hell it is they’re doing. Someone needs to get out there and stuff Chuck Schumenr into a rhetorical trash can and pants him. Who’s doing that? Who’s out there declaring Louise Slaughter clinically insane? Nobody, that’s who. This is a problem.
I haven’t read enough Cole to know how to interpret this
Hell di, just pretend you’re a lawyer — who cares what Cole meant when he wrote that. Take those words and make them dance to your own tune. Or conduct a reader poll! It’s what all the popular kids are doing these days.
“Someone needs to get out there and stuff Chuck Schumenr into a rhetorical trash can and pants him. Who’s doing that? Who’s out there declaring Louise Slaughter clinically insane? Nobody, that’s who. This is a problem.”
never fear mark levin is here
The only relationship between the GOP and the Overton Window is contained in the word “defenestration.”
They won’t do what needs to be done to right the ship, because they can’t even tell that it’s atilt.
Yes. Lots of them need to go. But it isn’t all of them. So, how about another primary season? Or should we just abandon the gains we’ve made and be the new Reform Party? Which is a serious question with serious implications. Third party ventures have a notoriously poor success rate. And I’d hate to let go of this party whose ass I’ve got my teeth sunk into.
I say we beat it into submission a little more. It’s not even fighting, it just lays there and whimpers. We can take it over. We’re just not done yet.
There a whole bunch of people on the GOP ship creaming their fucking heads off. A couple of them are noted doing so in this post. The goonies in charge won’t do it. Karl Rove wouldn’t do it. We need to finish steamrolling them.
If you see Bob Bennett around, tell him I said “Hi!” and make sure you giggle when you do it, k?
“Or should we just abandon the gains we’ve made and be the new Reform Party?”
nah too much work. easier to primary boner, cantor and et al in the primaries. go after all rethuglicans seated in the 111th congress.
any rethuglicans up for “transformational change”? yea i didn’t think so.
If you see Bob Bennett around, tell him I said “Hi!” and make sure you giggle when you do it, k?
Bennett landed him a cush lobbying job in the D.C. area, so I’m not likely to see him.
<Pat Gray>Dang! Darn! Ding! Dang! Rats! Blast! etc. </Pat Gray>
Speaking of getting rid the bums… and Pat Gray, this.
But we’ll never know. Instead, hey: let’s celebrate the fact that we may have remained just impotent enough that we didn’t cause any ripples in public consciousness! Come 2012, if we don’t say shit, maybe we win in landslide!
I’m not sure how 80 years of socialist touchdowns are supposed to be undone in 90 days, but I am interested (genuine here, not sarcasm) in what exactly the ‘right’ play was supposed to be.
So the House GOP should have passed the CR with $xxx billions in cuts plus whatever riders, and then the Senate kills it, correct? And then the House GOP resubmits the same CR until Nov. 2012?
I’m not sure how that gets us control over the other 2/3rds of the Federal beast let alone a smaller government.
rid of the bums, that is
He went fishing.
Part one of the “right” play would be to stop pretending that asking for less than 2% cut from a budget proposal with $1.72 TRILLION dollars in new deficit spending is trying to undo “80 years of socialist touchdowns … in 90 days.” It isn’t. It’s trying to pare down a budget proposal that offers $1.72 TRILLION dollars in new debt.
Part 2, show that you’re serious about spending cuts by showing a willingness to shut down parts of the government. Then remind everyone that the Dems had all 3 branches of the government and refused to pass a budget. As the new House leadership, you were elected to do so. Take your case to the American people. Tell them that what the Dems are fighting you on is the equivalent of 10 days of whatever it is — debt service? spending?
The numbers are astronomical and people have a hard time conceiving of them. So make it simple: Say you are $100 in debt. The Dems, by year’s end, will take you to $110 in debt. You think we should be paying down the debt, not increasing it. And so you fight. But the Dems won’t budge much, and they are willing to allow a government shutdown because you’re proposing the debt at the end of the year be “lowered” to $109.98. From the original $100.
bh: Pat’s Specter is magnificent, but when he goes into idle it makes my skin crawl.
His Al Gore is pretty good, too.
Arlen in idle kills me. I sort of miss him just for that. But not much.
“I’m not sure how 80 years of socialist touchdowns are supposed to be undone in 90 days,”
Reagan – Tear Down This Wall
That’s the hard part. We don’t have a mechanism to effectively do so; no friendly media or widely-known ‘Rather Face’ who hasn’t been demonized to hell by those who practice Alinsky. And who is our audience? Most Americans who pay attention to matters politic are already involved and polarized. The ‘Dancing with the American Idol’ set, fat, dumb and happy, won’t budge until the TV is blown up and the air conditioning quits. Or until they start starving. Then, they will blame the ‘rich’, because class warfare is the simplest and easiest to use weapon the Left has available. They are hammering us with that; it perfused the Cole crap I linked earlier.
But I don’t see persuading the ‘American people’ without a some sort of attention-getting event. That can’t be played against us.
Good luck with that happening. Mt. St. Helens could erupt again, and BHO would find a way to blame Republicans.
My thoughts are similar to Jeff’s at #74, bastiches. We all knew the situation. We all knew we weren’t going to wipe out the deficit with last years budget. But, this was an opportunity to make the case. Going in with such ridiculously low starting numbers blew that opportunity to make that case. As did going along with the narrative that even the smallest taste of tomorrow’s economic pain was something to avoid at all costs. No, not at all. Tomorrow’s economic pain is to be avoided at all costs. Today we can handle it. Tomorrow we’re Greece.
Beyond that, much of my discomfort with this deal is the trumpeting that came afterwards. Why couldn’t people just say, “This sucks but there’s not much we could have really done”? The grotesque cheerleading on display is appalling. They have me half convinced that they actually believe what they’re saying. And that’s scary to be perfectly honest with you.
The ones that don’t care won’t care what’s happening anyway. Take it to those whose interest is piqued because the government stopped running.
Do it by writing an op-ed for your hometown paper. Go on your hometown’s local news stations. Call a press conference. Go do a townhall meeting. Do something.
Sitting back and feeling sorry for yourself because you’re afraid your message won’t get out is not an excuse not to do what you were sent to Washington to do.
Understood, and I agree that few GOP’ers have bothered to take the time to explain anything effectively, save Ryan of late.
However, if the House forced the issue until Nov. 2012 and the GOP did their usual bang-up job of explaining nothing, that would mean zero new House seats, zero Senate seats, and Obama ass-grooving the WH seat cushions for another 4 years. Meanwhile, no reduction in government possible, and the economy is off to the glue factory.
I agree with being tough on politicians, especially those that claim to be conservative, but I’m having a rough time with demanding that the minority party should have been able to return the country in less than a half-year to something that the Founding Fathers would have recognized.
I’m not saying that we should let up on any pressure or break out the ace bandages for back-patting injuries, but either i’m numb to it all or I’d rather lose my shit over the 2011 budget. Or over being disappointed at the movie version of Atlas Shrugs.
Di, love the Al Gore. To be honest, he cracks me with pretty much everything he does.
Why? Why do we feel that making the conservative case — and refusing to fund an out of control government — equals a loss for us.
Maybe I see things differently, but in my experiences “our” losses always seem to be predicated on GOP timidity and pandering. And a chaotic, unfunded government, combined with soaring gas prices and high unemployment, means a sure Obama reelection?
Uh, okay.
It seems to me some of you have as your GOP strategy this: “Quick! Everybody hide!”
Reagan – Tear Down This Wall
6/12/87
minus
Sinews of Peace 3/5/46
= 41 years.
Sorry but this pisses me off. All the minority party has to do is return itself to something the FF would have recognized. And then the rest will or won’t follow.
Plus, it beats punting.
It’s worse than that. We don’t know how to do it. Or even recognize that we should. This is a very big problem. We need someone who understands the problem and can break it down for every half paying attention/pretty much an idiot American. We need someone who can sell the fucking problem into a state of recognition.
OK, that’s it.
Beck 2012. Let’s draft his ass.
I’ve never demanded that. Don’t recall hearing it elsewhere either. Even the most hardline demands are almost laughably weak. If we have a failing, it’s that we’re standing a few hundred miles on the other side of that line.
For instance: we’re talking about defanging a newly insane EPA or we’re talking about getting our deficits in check decades into the future. That’s a far cry from radical demands.
I don’t understand when people say we don’t have the ability to make our cases in front of the public at large.
2010. 1994. When they overreach like this, we have killed them historically.
Gas prices are high. As is unemployment. Once blue states like Wisconsin are changing their trajectory right in front of our eyes.
Now’s not the time to be timid. Now’s the time to take advantage of the favorable conditions. It won’t last forever.
And how do you expect that to happen with the number of fat, lazy rats in it? We’re not done. We’ve gotten a lot done, and we’ve gotten some very good, very serious people elected, but we still have much to do. We need many more. And if we can’t fix the GOP, how can we hope to fix the country?
Why? Why do we feel that making the conservative case — and refusing to fund an out of control government — equals a loss for us.
Because politics is an evil blend of Western legal tradition, demagoguery, and marketing. I don’t know the answer but I think that the average, a-political (purposeful or not) voter sees the Federal feed-trough as the politicians job. If the MSM yells and screams that someone is not doing their job, the public takes notice, and if the sirens last more than a few minutes the public will tend to blame the ones who have a hand on the feed bag cinches.
The Right isn’t just fighting the Demoncats here; they’re trying to circle around the natural inclination of the populace of a wealthy, sun-setting republic. IMHO, caveats all around, etc.
Yes, and now is not the time to abdicate the battlefield. If we need to lead from the rear, so be it. If we need to fight an internal civil war while fighting an external civil war, so be it. This is no time to stomp off. There are targets downrange that must be fired upon.
For myself, I agree with that, Pablo.
I understand the third party talk though. The response is that it probably won’t work. Well, people can be forgiven for thinking the GOP doesn’t work either after reading NRO hail Boehner as if he had just conquered Gaul and Britain in a single campaign.
Pressure, elections, ridicule, anger.
Clapping them on the back for playing Scotty J to the Dems’ Dirk Diggler — essentially happy to be picking the crumbs out of Obama’s porn pubes — ain’t working.
Gee, I wonder if not engaging that public — or telling them the truth, or proving worthy of our time at all — has anything to do with how we ended up where we’re situated.
Personally, I would rather they said “fuck it, its all on you” and give the Dems whatever they want AND MAKE THEM OWN IT than pulll their skirts up, piss in a fan and act like they accomplished something.
this does tell folks on “our” side that boner and cantor need a primary challenge. left overs from the gingrich effup.
I’m done arguing this.
Now is exactly the time to leave the battlefield. It’s the only way to show the GOP that we refuse to keep wasting blood and treasure on incompetently run campaigns overseen by political cowards and party hacks.
Next election, we primary every single one of the fuckers who doesn’t push our message. Although it’s beginning to dawn on me that to a lot of “our” side, all one need do to accurately represent them is be timid and not do much, so long as you can turn around and call that political bravery and genius long-term strategizing.
Which means we have precisely the party we deserve.
That’s more like it. You in?
Let’s fucking roll, bitches!
my sis watches american idol and always tries to talk to me about it..
i shrug-just say to her- ‘ i don’t like them type of shows”
i watch c-span-and if i say something to her- which i don’t cuz what’s the point[ not argeuing here-just a story]
but- we both drive big cars and we both notice gas and food prices..
she may not know all abouts the wind farms off kennedy gulch…
or czars and the executive bypassing congress or the host of other horrors
that i focus on…but…she knows her cat foods going up and
one likes dry,and one likes wet food and it ain’t pretty..
my point is uninformed voters, if they are bothered to vote [legit]
have other criteria that we [i] don’t fathoms
what i do know is i’m
sick of being called extreme and i wish my side [default side]
would ,defend my normal beliefs
because when i talk to peeps who are downscale knowledge wise
in terms of politics
they all agree, more or less, with my basic philosophy
Why would you clap them on the back when they need to be kicked squarely in the ass? You do that latter pretty well. Fire at will.
“it’s not even clear if what the GOP leadership netted was $38 billion in additional cuts — or if this deal includes the cuts made in the first two CRs.”
The sources I could find suggest that the latest cuts were in additon to the earlier cuts:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/us/politics/10reconstruct.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1
“By my math, it’s about 79 percent of what we wanted,” said Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin,
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/04/09/who-won-the-budget-fight/
“As everyone knows by now, the Great Government Shutdown of 2011 has been called off … or at least postponed. Republicans finished what the Democrats wouldn’t by clinching a budget deal late last night, finishing up the FY2011 budget with a total reduction in spending of $49 billion”
And then there is White house math:
“This deal cuts spending by $78.5 billion from the President’s FY 2011 Budget request — the largest annual spending cut in our history.”
(I think they get at this number by prorating the 49 billion.)
I think the compromise (79% for Boehner’s first effort) isn’t the problem. The problem was that the original 100 million goal (later prorated to 61 million for the fiscal year) was far too low. Rand Paul’s 500 billion would have been a better place to start the negotiations (bolded to insure my Outlaw Street Fred;). I think we’d all be a little more optimistic if we got a 275 million dollar cut.
And though they may seem minor the riders that passed did include a fairly bitter (to Democrats) pill forcing Obama to resart the D.C. voucher program and agreements from Harry “The war is Lost” Reid to allow floor votes defunding Obama care and Planned Parenthood.
Ok now having said that; Resume the Rage people and Keep Firing!!!
Someone has to keep their feet to the fire.
OK, time for an avatar change.
[…] at least as much heat on GOP leadership as the “progressives” are putting on Democrats.Jeff Goldstein’s self-deprecating reference to “extreme ideological purists who Don’t … — which is how soi-dissant “pragmatists” label conservative critics of the GOP […]
Poor baby, prison bars and all that shit.
The Tea Party is the third party. Out of nowhere, seemingly, we came along and did a great shellacking. Without the Tea Party, no shellacking; GOP wanders in the wilderness, as Nishi predicted. So, in 2010, the Tea Party won several seats, but not enough for to force our way or the highway on either the GOP or the nonplussed nation at large.
But more important than just winning a few seats, the Tea Party is a ‘fire in the belly’ influence on the rest of the GOP. Let’s take for example my Congressman, Diane Black. She wasn’t the Tea Party candidate (Lou Ann Zelnick was, but lost in the primary) but you can see from her press release pre-$38 B vote that she is influenced by the Tea Party. Which is a good thing.
It’s the Ryan budget that’s the fight now; it may be a bigger fight than the fight for the Oval Office. We should drive this thing.
That one choked me up a little pd;)
Oh, and substitute billion for million in my previous posts.
(Or pencil in a b for the m if you’re trying to save paper;)
Geoffb,
Man what a whiner!
G.W. never complained about the fish bowl, when he wanted to get away he just hopped on his bike and left.
Wussy press had no stomach for following and the secret service had to get in better shape.
That’s how a real man deals.
And that basic philosophy is… fear the Bjork.
I think we can all agree with that.
no primary the “leadership” of this idiot cabal. eff boner, cantor et al now. yea ’cause the other folks are: barak,reid,pelosi, and communism. me i’m outlaw.
“It’s the Ryan budget that’s the fight now”
i’m into transformational change. i say go rand paul.
how’s come “our” side doesn’t want to debate what “transformational change” is?
then there’s jen, johnpo, nro, rovester and petey trying to be “moderates”. you losers should be “moderating” the communist party. go fight your battles over there. leave us alone.
That buttresses the point quite clearly, nr. Rand Paul is actually quite cautious with his policy. His basic sense of the budget numbers simply compel him to move the decimal point to the right.
He’s not wrong. Nor is his asking for anything but a simple step in the right direction on the discretionary budget.
Same with Ryan on entitlements.
If we’re willing to allow — for even a moment — that we’ve accomplished anything with this agreement beyond defending the city wall overnight then we make it impossible to move on to even the most modest of reforms.
Oh, ok, the golf, the vacations, are actually strategic.
compels, that is
Yeah, I should probably read my own comments once in awhile before I hit the button.
“that we’ve accomplished anything with this agreement beyond defending the city wall overnight then we make it impossible to move on to even the most modest of reforms.”
nah the election gave these losers a credit to hit baracky big time. boner passed on it. eff this “leadership”.
bh
i accept what you are saying. me these boner fools could have pointed at some thing larger. but no they played the “beltway game” of who shut down what. they are playing the progg game so i pass on what the “intelligentsia of the stupid party” says.
Eh, that was a poor allusion on my part, nr. I think we’re on the same page. We should probably link music at this point to celebrate our too rare agreement rather than risking it.
Here.
“It’s the Ryan budget that’s the fight now;”
serr8d,
Request to quibble sir!
The debt ceiling fight is the next battle. Don’t let a crisis go to waste Mr.! (swear I’ve heard that somewhere before;)
bjorks health plan…/
freeze every tear..
winter games X!
james bond skiing bang bang chase scene [reggae-fied-oh . 086 per cent ]
i hear when u freeze to death u get all comfy and delerious and warm
and hallucinate and the only snow angel that u make that
u have to be worried about is the one that looks like christopher walken
in a winter wonderland
Say the magic word, win a button.
Hi pd.
Good stuff bh,
Kind reminds me of these guys:
(btw love the first comment on this one;)
hi geoff
do not fear her
get near her
theres a career there…
said the albatross to the neck
That’s… strangely compelling, pd.
You have, what?, mad tangential skills. Here’s a Hobbes quote for you:
“I hear you are singing a song of the past
I see no tears
I know that you know it may be the last
For many years
You’d gamble or give anything
To be in with the better half
But how many friends must I have
To begin with to make you laugh
CHORUS:
Will you still have a song to sing
When the razor boy comes
And take your fancy things away
Will you still be singing it
On that cold and windy day”
link
Good call, Danger, the Chili Peppers are a guilty pleasure of mine. Here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU9vToZ8ti4
Bjork or avatar that is the question. And with that a good night, church comes early for this nightbird.
How come Jeff always steps off right before we start the party?
overheard in bjorks touring bus ..
fargo or bust….
patti smith cd’s
three stooges episode where curly
takes a big block of ice and / mmmmm/ runs up them stairs only to find an ice cube…
mmmm- nyuck nyuck nyuck
she knows her cat foods going up and
one likes dry,and one likes wet food and it ain’t pretty..
My cats eat what I give them, by gum. As if furry roommates who don’t pay rent and puke on the carpet deserve any better.
i’m sick of being called extreme
When you have Weather Underground types in the White House and an all-in press and a hysterical, drama-queen clown like Glenn Beck being the only one who manages to predict the future (well, he and that odd Canuck Steyn), having common sense IS extreme.
Extreme always being a comparative term that depends on where the Overton window has drifted to.
“And with that a good night, church comes early for this nightbird.”
Man we lost another Geoff, this party is whack;)
Night All.
And Keep Firing!!!
How come Jeff always steps off right before we start the party?
How come you start the party right after Jeff steps off?
Seems you’ve got your causality mixed up there.
Oingo Boingo!
You win, Danger.
Thank God you people dropped the Saturday night politics. I stopped by earlier and wanted to slit my wrists.
Thank God you people dropped the Saturday night politics.
I’m sick of being called “you people.”
:D
Give the people a song, Abe. You have surprisingly good taste.
Well, Jersey. ‘Cause you were wondering why I said surprisingly.
For that you shall get nothing but Jersey bands, cow tipper.
agree- we are [ fuck u!] umm/ we most are [better, but not butter!]
in a certain…strata? [ fuck if i know the word- but i do know my
comrades are twinky dinky like me [kinda] ]
so- how can we[ i’m saying we cuz i believe we, u believe
more or less.. believe me when i say i have believiability…
how to get the muddle to piddle in a puddle?
how to lead a horse to water?
do u have a two tap dance ricardo taps for Americas sash?
or
are u a half-wit handcuff houdini ?
harpoon!
just put a big tank in it’s mouth, so we can pretend
Do you hear a ton of songs at work, Abe? I sometimes wonder how the songs get matched to the ad campaign. Whether that’s a specialized job or all part of first, essential pitch.
By the way, yes, we do tip cows who offer exemplary service. Frankly, it would be uncouth to do otherwise.
cn tower girl for president
Do you hear a ton of songs at work, Abe? I sometimes wonder how the songs get matched to the ad campaign. Whether that’s a specialized job or all part of first, essential pitch.
Unless it’s a commercial where a specific song is integral to the concept, you just give a sort of vague description of the type of music that will accompany it when presenting concepts to a client. Then depending on the budget and other things, you either buy the rights to a song or you get a lot more specific and then a music guy composes a bunch of options. For the latter, it is good to have an at least surface familiarity with a lot of music and listen to a variety of stuff, but I think it’s a lot more common in the business for people to just mindlessly imitate what’s already on the air. As far as it being a specialized job, no. There are people who are there to aid the process, but they have no autonomy.
if u stumble..and vote for me..inadvertantley or even maybe
kinda cuz u heard things about my ” flavor” ability
“ratings”
i– and my mommma shirl..
will not pick up ur puke/
even if we can tie it like we hog
tie food
even if–as god is my witness..
i can tie crosby stills and…not young but..
nash..
to ur childreny problems.. ur “teeat -no- compleat”
insistance on closure..
nut
Thanks, Abe.
Don’t really understood the nuts and bolts of your business. I try to sometimes but just black box it most the time when push comes to shove. X dollars for y (complicated formula) minutes on z platform.
Okay, sorry to go back to politics on Saturday night (just got back from doing a gig at a car club shop; it was great, I can talk about that if you’d rather)…
BUT….
If we won, why is Barky so happy? And if Boehner won’t go to the wall for a hundred bill (or even 61, or 40), who the hell really thinks he’s gonna try for a trillion? When the other player knows your bluffs aren’t backed up by anything at all, you fold, put down the cards, go home to the wife, and apologize for losing all that money. Doesn’t matter if you tell her, “hey, hon, I was ALMOST THERE, I really had ’em going.” You still lost, and she’s still gonna be pissed.
Mike —
You and I should tat up and ride the country, beating people into KNOWLEDGE!
Of course, Obambi is satisfied. But I do feel he’s putting on a good face about it. He never wanted any of this budget mess to reflect on him or his party. That little speech he made was puke inducing.
He probably just happy he can now take another vacation trip. Some of his base seem a bit out of sorts, enough so that they blurt out things they usually say on the QT.
And in other news.
Deserves have everything to do with it.
Occasionally I agree with Mickey Kaus, this is one of them.
What is our nuclear option?
We need a nuclear option.
’cause without the threat of total destruction they’re just going to keep jerkin off on our dime.
We need a nuclear option.
And that will require somebody’s finger hovering above the whatchamacallit at all times.
Any volunteers?
My mom is retired and lives off of her Social Security. She is willing to take a 20% cut, as long as every other government official takes a 20% cut too. Along with every other federal budget.
Mom is not a hard line conservative. Mom dislikes Sarah Palin intensely and is pro-choice. Mom also thinks that no one deserves to earn more than 20 million dollars a year.
In a lot of circles, Mom would be considered Center/Right. I also consider Mom to be fairly representative of middle of the road voters.
Mom gets her information from the usual suspects, NBC, CBS and ABC. Yet, even with the Obama propaganda whores as her news service, Mom accepts that the country is in dire economic straights and everyone needs to sacrifice.
The assholes in Washington are unwilling to risk their cushy offices in order to do what’s right for the country. And it completely pisses me off.
I did a Rip Van Winckle for a week in the mountains and come back to find more of the same ol’ same ol’. Ugh.
So, Andrew Stiles (he of “Boehner Wins Big” headline yesterday) responds to the butt-hurt he received for his trouble (mirroring some of my own gut-perceptions)…
And so on.
The Tea Party is seemingly quelled right now, but as we edge closer to 2012 there’ll be a strong resurgence. We have to channel our energies to peak at the right time; this was a bit too soon, we didn’t have the resources or the support fully engaged.
I’ve personally watched these things political ebb and flow since Nixon, Ford and Carter cavorted on stage. We’ve got to master our timings, or all of our energy might go to waste.
And? He was wrong yesterday and he’s wrong now. I don’t give a tinker’s damn that he is “thoroughly unconvinced” that taking a principled stand would have made a difference. He asks, “how would that work exactly?” Strange question for a guy pretending to be all into the politics of the decision. But here, let me help: Obama would have to defend refusing to cut less than 1/2 of 1 percent out of a budget that would add $1.72 trillion to the debt. The GOP could have told taxpayers that Obama and the Dems were willing to shut down the government and withhold pay for military families (but not welfare recipients!) because, though our country faces the prospect of financial collapse, they insist on deficit spending into the trillions.
These weren’t “cuts” the GOP were asking for. They were reductions in a budget that wants to spend an additional $1.72 TRILLION dollars that we don’t have. Even if in the end GOP leadership was not able to get another dollar out of Obama and the Senate Democrats, they would have shown the American people who is and who isn’t working toward fiscal sanity. And maybe even shown the American people that the reason they can only do so much is that they don’t have the Senate or the White House. Hint hint.
This would have given them momentum going into the bigger battles. And shown that the Dems are obstructionists when it comes to reining in an out of control government and fiscally insane spending.
Yeah, I know. What a tough sell! Poor GOP. They need to hold their fire until things line up perfectly! At which point they’ll pounce like the fearsome jungle cats they are.
Bullshit.
Here’s the problem people like Stiles don’t seem to get: at some point the GOP is going to count on the TEA Partiers, and they won’t be there. I’m tired of hearing about how we need to “master our timing.” I’m not concerned with political gamesmanship. We are at the tipping point. If you can’t act on principle now — and sell the message on principle — then it’s time to step off and let someone who can do just that.
If Republicans wimp out on [pick any one] and/or fail to give a full-throated defense of [pick any other], then we’re all in big trouble.
Whatever.
Which, oddly, is the GOP track record.
We’re in big trouble no matter what the Republicans do or don’t do. It’s looking more like something external to the normal political operative conditions will…snap!
Dread that, if you would.
“What do we want?”
“Civility!”
“When do we want it?”
“Some other day!”
Here you go. “Our fifteen minutes of complaining are up.“
Thanks, serr8d. I’d forgotten how uninvolved I am and how much bitching I do.
Last night I thought we might lose the TV set — we had the news on (1st mistake) when Maxine “no justice no peace” Waters was given air time as she appeared in front of a bunch of angry women demanding to know where the “draconian cuts of $33 billion” were coming from. She was screaming at the females to “demand to know” —
[husband almost chucked his drink right through the tv set]
Seems “entitlements” are rights…no matter how much Head Start has not made a difference, these gals demand government paid for babysitters
Well of course they’re ‘rights’. I mean, “entitlements”, says it all right there in the name.
We lost that rhetorical battle whenever we let them call these programs something other than “extortion extracted from the populace at gunpoint, in order to keep the poor from stealing, and the old from dying in the street”.
Which, admittedly, doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Brevity trumps honesty.
“You and I should tat up and ride the country, beating people into KNOWLEDGE!”
Dude — I am so. There. OUTLAW!