Search






Jeff's Amazon.com Wish List

Archive Calendar

November 2024
M T W T F S S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
252627282930  

Archives

Obama’s post-debt limit deal speech, distilled

Stop listening to the evil assholes who, with their voices or their pens or their computers or their activism, continue to fight my attempt to fundamentally transform this wretched capitalistic country.  That flawed document you crackers all fetishize, the Constitution, and the rich white slave owners who drafted the ridiculous and largely obstructionist thing, would want you to do just that:  shut up and let the professional political class manage you like the filthy herd animals you are.  Economic units aren’t supposed to talk back.  So know your place, tea-tards.

“You see, we need to work together, as a bipartisan whole, to make sure I get whatever it is I’m demanding whenever it is I’m demanding I want it.  And no, I will not negotiate on that — just as yes, I will bring the whole economy down if you don’t do as I say, because I have assurances it’ll be blamed on you, anyway.  Mostly by those who share your same Party affiliation.  Which, how fucked up is that, amiright?

“So, in summary:  Listen to the goddamn Framers, who wanted the federal government to work seamlessly and without any checks on the power of a duly elected King and his court, and stop trying to keep this train from rolling on to a brighter, more green and egalitarian socialist tomorrow.  I mean, for Chrissakes, I’ve got the Republican leadership on board, I’ve got the Chamber of Commerce, I’ve got the media, I’ve got Karl Rove and Chris Christie — why in the hell don’t you teabaggers just eat your peas and, as your very own Speaker of the House once directed you, ‘get your asses in line?’

“Because it is only then that we can come together as a nation.  Through the caring and gentle nudging of a faceless administrative state whose regulations, which carry the force of law, reflect my will.  That is to say, we need to ignore the hideous terrorism of dissent in order to live peacefully as one glorious collective.  Especially so now that my buddy Billy Ayers’ death camp idea never quite caught on.  A shame, that.  But, you know — we work with what we’ve got…”

41 Replies to “Obama’s post-debt limit deal speech, distilled”

  1. Ernst Schreiber says:

    You left out:

    “And what I’m demanding now is that we vote ourselves a better, more compliant, dependent constituency. Because you didn’t build that, so why should you keep it? Now eat your peas.”

  2. LindaQ says:

    He is essentially saying “How dare you disagree with me”. This is where totalitarians always go. Stop all dissent.

  3. dicentra says:

    OK, so try this on for size:

    In 2014, we manage a veto-proof majority in the Senate. Both houses repeal Obamacare root and branch.

    Obama finds a way to deem the repeal illegitimate and orders the IRS to carry on. If the GOP plays hardball and refuses to provide funds, he threatens to use his discretion to default on the national debt.

    Against the express language of the Constitution, yes, but since when has that stopped him?

  4. dicentra says:

    Ok, I see the flaw in my logic: “the GOP plays hardball.”

    Never mind. What crazy talk!

  5. newrouter says:

    we manage a veto-proof majority in the Senate. Both houses repeal Obamacare root and branch.

    impeachment and removal easy peasy

  6. Ernst Schreiber says:

    I think you went off track when you positied a veto proof GOP majority in the Senate.

    To say nothing of the House

  7. geoffb says:

    “Now, this debt ceiling — I just want to remind people in case you haven’t been keeping up — raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt…’

    Obama breaks his own record! And his word too but who ever notices that, common as dirt, thing.

    U.S. debt jumped a record $328 billion on Thursday, the first day the federal government was able to borrow money under the deal President Obama and Congress sealed this week.
    […]
    The $328 billion increase shattered the previous high of $238 billion set two years ago.

  8. hellomynameissteve says:

    The Tea Party Response: We weren’t going to default. We were going to yank 500bn out of the economy, but it’s 500bn that we don’t need to spend and can’t afford. 500bn suddenly going away will create jobs and unleash the economy to roar, even though no regulations have been repealed, and no obligations have gone away. Trust us, it’ll be great, you’ll see. And if it royally sucks, and the global economy contracts for several years, and unemployment goes up to 15% (or more), it’s because the Democrats are going out of their way to make it as painful as possible. Seriously, we never wanted this. This was their idea. They need to own it.

    Here’s the thing, ok, we might end up in a depression. I can’t rule it out, but that’s OK because IT WAS ALL GOING TO COLLAPSE ANYWAYS! It was just a matter of time. I’m certain of it. Better to blow it up now than wait around for it to come crashing down. This was absolutely going to happen. There is no doubt. Anyone who expresses doubt about the coming soon economic collapse is either (a) stupid or (b) flat out lying to you, probably because a collapse on their terms is part of the plan to turn you into slaves. Slaves! SLAVES!

    Oh, and when it collapses on our terms, people will probably get a bit desperate, and we might need to shoot some of them. It’ll be fun. Liberal elite says, “I demand you pay for my half-caf-double-decaf-with-a-twist-of-lemon.” And I say whatever it sounds like to shoot that fucker right in his disbelieving face.

    We’ll rebuild from the ashes, and it’ll be free. Really free, probably for at least 100 years until we all get fat and stupid and start forgetting the freedom is important again.

    So America, who’s with me!?!?!?

    America???

    America…???

  9. leigh says:

    Hi, steve. What did “the little woman” and you decide to do about the great deal on Ocare?

    I saw today that no one in Oregon has signed up yet.

  10. leigh says:

    Oh. Before you posit anymore hypotheticals about TEA Party responses and ideas, try reading up on them first.

    You can start somewhere easy like that link I gave you a week ago to the US Constitution.

    Chop chop.

  11. hellomynameissteve says:

    Golly, since no one in Oregon has signed up yet, I don’t feel too far behind. Good thing I don’t have to be signed up right this fucking minute, huh? Whew. That’s a relief.

    As to my Tea Party analysis, I think I nailed it. But do tell on what I got wrong.

  12. leigh says:

    I don’t have that kind of time, son. Plus, I don’t truck with liars.

    You’ll have to get someone else to help you. Make sure the “little woman” reads over your shoulder, okay?

  13. Pellegri says:

    steve is trying much too hard. It is very sad.

  14. palaeomerus says:

    “As to my Tea Party analysis, I think I nailed it.”

    And, that counts for a whole lot right?

  15. palaeomerus says:

    If you make some lame shit up and tell people you think you nailed it that’s like totally a thing right?

  16. palaeomerus says:

    Steve is an auto-comedian. He tells jokes and then laughs at them so they will be funny.

  17. hellomynameissteve says:

    palaeomerus takes

    three posts

    to say

    what he could have said

    in one

  18. geoffb says:

    Golly gee.

    He speak Tea.

    Ah yup, ah yup, ah yup.

  19. palaeomerus says:

    Steve forgot to laugh at his little zinger there.

  20. SBP says:

    Hey, Stevo/Slaphead…. sign up for that “awesome” policy yet, or are you still talking it over with “the little woman”?

    Never mind, we know you haven’t, because not one single person in Oregon has. Not one single person.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/18/the-other-side-of-obamacares-oregon-success-no-one-has-bought-private-insurance/

    Here’s your big chance. Make some history, mang!

  21. palaeomerus says:

    Be the first cow in the chute!

  22. hellomynameissteve says:

    SBP, that’s such a brilliant observation, which is probably why leigh beat you to it. I guess you see this as a great big deal, but I have no idea why.

  23. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Did you remember to give your self a harrump to go along with all that table pounding?

  24. palaeomerus says:

    “I guess you see this as a great big deal, but I have no idea why. ”

    Simply devastating. How ever will we withstand the immense force of such a wit. Why it dwarfs the very power of dame nature, it does.

  25. geoffb says:

    Palaeomerus, in his “job” three comments that could be just one is considered slacking off on the job. Pay docking would be involved.

    Being an “Obama girl” is more serious than the Russian version. The colonials always are trying to be more mother-country than the mother-country ever was.

  26. Pablo says:

    So, if I’m reading steve right, the entire US economy relies on borrowed money.

    hellomynameissteve takes

    dozens of posts

    to say

    what he shouldn’t have said

    at all

  27. SBP says:

    “I guess you see this as a great big deal, but I have no idea why”

    Liar.

    Other than that, great point.

    Let us know when you actually sign up, Slaphead. Then let us know when you actually find a doctor that takes it.

  28. SBP says:

    P.S. You’ve only got about two months. Otherwise you, the little woman, and your sperm donees will have no coverage AND you get to pay a $2500 fine.

    If you think the IRS is going to accept “but the site wasn’t working” as an excuse, you don’t know much about the IRS.

    Tick-tock, mang! Forward to a better tomorrow!

  29. SBP says:

    To pre-avert spinning, “signed up” means “completed all paperwork, entered payment information, and received confirmation that you have coverage”. “Found a doctor” means “have been given the name of an actual human being and have made an appointment with said human being”.

  30. geoffb says:

    Obamacare enrollment graphic.

  31. SBP says:

    The numbers are actually worse than that graphic would lead you to believe. About 90% of the “enrollees” in Washington state (which is widely touted as a “successful” program) actually went into the existing Medicaid system.

  32. geoffb says:

    My bolding.

    HealthCare.gov has been taken down several times for maintenance, and officials describe a 24/7 push to revamp the system. The specific cause or causes of the problem is still a mystery to everyone but a tight circle of administration officials and contractors — if even they have figured it all out.

    Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini said earlier in the week on CNBC that the system was developed so late that standard rounds of functionality testing are “happening on the fly.” And he warned of potential breakdowns in other parts of the system once the early problems are unraveled.

    “There’s so much wrong, you just don’t know what’s broken until you get a lot more of it fixed,” he said. Bertolini predicted it could take three years to repair, but others in the health care industry are talking about a far shorter time frame, although they don’t want to be quoted by name even talking about “months” while HHS is being mum.

    Web brokers that signed agreements with the administration to offer subsidized Obamacare plans on their websites have been unable to connect to the federal system. Federal health officials say they’re working to bring the e-brokers in, but the brokers say communication has been virtually nonexistent.

    “[Fixing HealthCare.gov] is obviously a priority over getting their interface ready to go, but the Web brokers — like other stakeholders — aren’t really getting any info from HHS either,” said Venable attorney Chris Condeluci, who’s working with Web brokers.

    Facing such intense opposition from congressional Republicans, the administration was in a bunker mentality as it built the enrollment system, one former administration official said. Officials feared that if they called on outsiders to help with the technical details of how to run a commerce website, those companies could be subpoenaed by Hill Republicans, the former aide said. So the task fell to trusted campaign tech experts.

    And this assumes that the mess that is Obamacare is the right thing to do, is what people want done, and that the breakdown isn’t exactly what was designed into the whole mess from the beginning as a way to take us to single payer which was always what the politicians who passed this really wanted.

  33. geoffb says:

    “Trusted campaign tech experts,” the Narwhal/Dreamcatcher crowd. Do you think that there isn’t a backdoor that hands all the info into the campaign’s system? Seriously?

  34. leigh says:

    OT: Lowest job participation rate since 1978.

    The Affordable Care Act is looking not-s-affordable, eh?

  35. geoffb says:

    A piece by Yuval Levin.

    The calculation of subsidies continues to fail tests, and it’s pretty clear that some actual consumers have made actual purchases with bad information, which will become apparent to them when they get their first bills.
    […]
    The insurers are very, very worried about the viability of the exchange system—especially but not exclusively at the federal level.

    One key worry is based on the fact that what they’re facing is not a situation where it is impossible to buy coverage but one where it is possible but very difficult to buy coverage. That’s much worse from their point of view, because it means that only highly motivated consumers are getting coverage. People who are highly motivated to get coverage in a community-rated insurance system are very likely to be in bad health. … The insurers don’t yet have a clear overall sense of the risk profile of the people who are signing up, but the circumstantial evidence they have is very distressing to them. The danger of a rapid adverse selection spiral is much more serious than they believed possible this summer.

    A feature if breaking the insurance companies is a goal.

  36. Patrick Chester says:

    “Steve” blathered:
    The Tea Party Response:

    *snipped after the first lie*

    Darn, this just keeps happening to you. Oh wait: You’re a progressive. It’s in your nature.

  37. serr8d says:

    Shortest @BarackObama: “SHUT UP, PROLES!”

  38. serr8d says:

    …probably for at least 100 years until we all get fat and stupid and start forgetting the freedom is important again.

    It’s taken from the late 1700’s until the late 1960’s to get moved this far-Left, so perhaps the next iteration of a Republic that’s based on representation and fond of individual liberty over socialized, kept-in-cage-living will figure out that Leftists need be quashed and smashed earlier.

    Much, much earlier; far sooner than we’re getting around to this time…

  39. Jeff G. says:

    There are several things wrong with steve’s attempt at a turnaround, not the least of which Pablo points out: steve essentially is claiming here that if we aren’t allowed to borrow to increase our debt, the US will default, meaning that the US doesn’t have the money to run itself, and as we’re spending over 100% of GDP, we can’t ever stop borrowing, lest the country can’t run. So essentially, we’re dependent on selling our own debt to ourselves, artificially keeping interest rates low, and hoping other countries will continue to lend us money for programs their own trustees have called unsustainable.

    The fact is — and we’re fortunate here, but not for long — steve is (naturally) wrong: no matter how many times we show him the facts and he repeats the lie about a default, the truth is the US can’t default, by Constitutional law, unless the President and the Treasury secretary choose to default by not prioritizing to pay the service on our debt first. At least so long as we have the money to service our debt.

    Other spending would have to be cut — and steve, thinking he’s clever, believes that all that money pulled from the government’s coffers would simply disappear and not make it into the economy. But of course, steve won’t deal with the fact that the GAO, et al., have already shown that by simply paring down duplicate programs and then curtailing waste, fraud, and abuse, we can save upwards of a third to a half trillion dollars yearly. Further cuts, preferably to departments that have seen budget growth of over 100% under this President, would easily bring spending back in line — and could perhaps even bring about the slow process of paring down the debt.

    But rather than do that, steve wants to go right on borrowing to increase the fiscal operating debt — already at over 17 trillion — which doesn’t even take into account the over $90 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

    But, you know, stop hyperventilating TEA baggers. It’ll all work out. Because Magic Negro!

    Or, to be it another way, steve is a fucking liar and a fucking free loader who can go fuck himself, preferably with a jai alai cesta dipped in honey and swarming with unionized wood wasps.

    And link backs from Balloon Juice can then share that erotic trip down fuck themselves lane right along with this new tool from the leftist’s homogeneously-stocked shed. Several years back John Cole got put by doctors on a recumbent bike regimen to lose his dangerous, healthcare-cost-raising torso fat, but all that did was help him lose weight in his brain, instead.

    So he and that legion of sneering dullards can stop linking here. I stopped caring what he thought about anything about 7 years ago now — when he found out he could make more money bashing the right than doing the right thing.

    Needy little bitch.

    Trackback deleted.

  40. geoffb says:

    Are they signing up for Obamacare, or for Medicaid?” by David Freddoso.

    Yesterday, The Washington Post suggested that at least 185,000 people have signed up for Obamacare:. That sounds promising for the program even if it’s still well short of the pace needed to meet the goals. And then Oregon has just reported 56,000 enrollments. So isn’t everything going just fine?

    In fact, no. When you see state enrollment numbers, you have to ask yourself this question: How many of those people are actually becoming Obamacare private insurance exchange customers, as opposed to people who (1) were always eligible but are just signing up for Medicaid for the first time, and (2) people who are newly eligible for Medicaid under the expanded coverage thresholds in some states?

    In Oregon, that 56,000 number you’re hearing today is all Medicaid. Their online exchange doesn’t even work yet. The state bulked up its Medicaid rolls by targeting food stamp recipients. So great, those folks have some kind of insurance (whether or not a doctor will see them), but it tells us nothing about the private health insurance exchanges — the middle class version of Obamacare — or how they’re going to fare.

    Link found at this piece by Megan McArdle.

Comments are closed.