The current political environment is marked by a small minority holding the entire nation hostage to its demands, with special-interest groups and the wealthiest among us not-so-secretly directing the strategies of said minority. The term “public servant” no longer applies: today’s Congressional Representatives and Senators do not have the best interests of their constituents, or their country as a whole, in mind. What we are witnessing now is the beginning of the destruction of our government and our nation. Who would have thought that it could possibly come to this?
Actually, the first President of these United States, George Washington, thought that it could easily come to this. In his farewell address, published in The Independent Chronicle, September 26, 1796, President Washington warned of the influence and divisiveness of special interests:
“To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable…This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.”
“All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.”
“However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”
The “Father of Our Country” was truly an amazing man. It’s a shame that the like of him has not been seen since our Nation’s founding.
This is our Sunday Roast. What’s on your mind today?
TheZoo 
Martin Brundle is giving a lesson about tire compounds to the Rolling Stones’ She Comes In Colors on the BBC Hungary pre-race. That was cool.
They don’t think of things like that on the Speed Channel with only half as much time.
Last week at the Nurburgring, the threat of rain on race day affected qualifying, and inevitably, the race, which stayed dry. Yesterday no one mentioned rain during qualifying and the track is wet as the cars form up on the grid. The cars are starting on intermediate tread rain tires, expecting to change to slicks at the first pit stops. I like these kind of races.
Today (Sunday), July 31, The Sunday Roast, regarding George Washington, and his legacy, is exceptionally cogent and incisive. Truly inspired writing.
parx24, welcome to The Zoo! And thanks for the very nice compliment! 😉
Fellow Zoosters, parx24 is a friend who has been ‘critiquing’ my writing, both for TheZoo and my LTEs to the local papers. Please give him a warm welcome.
Hey,wait a minute parx, are you complimenting me or George? 😉
Believe it or not, I am complimenting you. You wrote an excellent response to a not so excellent essay..
Wow, this thread really is a keeper. 😀
parx24 – A hearty welcome to the zoo. It does get zoo like around here at times. 🙂
bring it….I’m tough
Welcome to the Zoo, parx24. 🙂
Excellent post Jane. Just excellent. It is amazing to me all the things I continue to learn here at The Zoo. Thanks for posting this.
Muse, thank you so much. When I ran across that libertycentral.org which Ginni (Mrs. Clarence) Thomas started, the one post (Threat of Foreign Law) there quoted something from Washington’s farewell address. So I read the entire farewell address and found so many great quotes pertinent to today’s politics, I’ll probably write a few more posts just on this one document. GW was incredibly prescient.
Welcome Parx24!
Good morning everybody and welcome Parx24!
EV’s guy Mark Webber finally figured out how to finish a race higher than he started, by qualifying 6th! He would have done better but his team blew it on tire strategy.
That’s what they do to the number 2 driver **grump**
Sometimes split strategies work for the number twos. It worked for Button today. F1 only has two cars per team. Imagine what it’s like for Michael Andretti trying to split strategies among four cars in an Indycar race! I can’t always keep up with what he’s doing, with some drivers on hard tires, some on soft, some charging, some playing fuel strategy. Then trying to keep up with Penske and Ganassi at the same time.
Yeah but whenever RB splits strategy, Vettel profits. I’ve never seen it the other way around this year… 😦 Well, I am a sore loser that’s all, I think.)
The Gayanashagowa, the ‘constitution’ of the Iroquois Nation, predates the US Constitution by anywhere from 50-500 or more years. In it, some interesting concepts which some suggest inspired the founders of the more recent nation atop the same soil, the United States of America.:
One wonders what the Iroquois nation would have done with or to today’s US Republican Party following its blatant attempt to destroy the financial stability and reputation of the US. Or maybe it’s covered here?
Perhaps it’s high time for our ‘Lords of the Confederacy who remain faithful’ — most often assumed to be the Progressive Democrats — to grab the bull by the horns and get the job done.
fascinating! I never cease learning here at the Zoo, thanks to all it’s members.
The Iroquois also knew that villages should be limited in size. If a village began to grow beyond a certain number of people, then a new village was created. Villages could become too big to prosper.
One wonders how humans on the North American continent several hundred years ago and several thousand years ago devolved into what we see today.
The barbarian Europeans arrived and brought with them their defining mantra and its inevitable consequences:
Greed.
Welcome to Parx24, and thanks for a great post Jane. VA used to produce great men, now we’re responsible for Weasel Cantor. I’m ashamed.
welcome Parx24.. there’s plenty of room at the Zoo and plenty of space to comment extensively if you feel the need—-I think the comment box character limit is 4K (beyond that it is automatically sent to the spam bin). When I have a lot to say, I usually just break my verboseness into single page-view chunks, which saves messing about with precise word counts.
Excellent post Jane, that’s a keeper. All of the FF’s were very smart and thoughtful, In my amateur studies of early American political history I have learned that the FF’s were opposed to .the formation of political parties, which makes it sound like they might have embraced special interest politics—but in fact it seems that there vision of the conduct of political activity was to address specific policy issues as they related to the commonwealth. In that way they could stick to the subject and not get bogged down with dogma, which they thought would be the inevitable consequence of formal political parties. And they were right..
5th, if anybody here would know the limit of the comment box, it would be you! 😀
The driver who doesn’t bump up against the rev-limiter once in a while isn’t driving at ten tenths.
har de har, house! (funny ‘cos it;s true!)
102 things NOT to do if you hate taxes.
That’s great! I’d add 103: Do not whine about how hard your life is without the help of your countrymen.
This should get the baggaradi’s knickers in a knot.
“Do not buy firearms that wouldn’t have been developed without the support of the US Government and military. That includes most of them.”
Addendum to 8. Do not drive on any paved road, highway, and interstate or drive on any bridge.
Better yet, don’t drive a motor vehicle anywhere, period, without proper license and registration. I.O.W., walk, since only the state issues the proper permissions. But think of all the money you’ll save. NO MANDATORY AUTO INSURANCE!
Oh, and also, don’t WALK or traverse by any other conveyance any road or bridge anywhere that was paid for by public funds. Stay home. But remember, you can NOT stay in your home if you don’t pay taxes. Perhaps a decent cardboard box somewhere? A cave, maybe (so long as neither are on public property, of course).
Most excellent list, Cats. Bookmarked for future reference!
Dems, GOP Float Eye-Popping Debt Limit Compromise
Frugal thanks for the link.
You All, try to go and read stivo’s comment. It is highly precisely analysing the current state you’re in. Makes he same points as “The Winner Take All Politics” and is spot on.
The report of this alleged compromise is false. According to the comments, Nate Silver stated the report of a compromise was leaked by a teabagger who works for him.
Nate Silver has a teabagger working for him? Wha?
Gay Group Works Against Equal Rights By Supporting Michele Bachmann
It’s an S & M thing
It’s a train wreck thing. 😀
Debate re debt ceiling starts — AGAIN — at noon (ET):
http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN2/
And that’s another S & M thing 😀
Oops, I meant THIS was the train wreck thing. Heh.
Commenting from behind the scenes with nested comments can be…interesting.
Oh great, they’re starting with a prayer.
Maybe that’s the damn problem?
Now reciting the “pledge allegiance.”
I thought it was the pledge OF allegiance.
Or this new pledge of allegiance:
Coming to you from an Elementary school near you in the near future?
Fourth graders at Halliburton Elementary School reciting the new pledge of allegiance:
http://www.youtube.com/user/InsidiousProphet#p/u/6/wK_imrss7WI
I have been avoiding this spectacle since day one. It’s all a game, scripted and being played out by the puppets of our corporate masters. The main intent was to obviously get the democrats to approve and vote yes to cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Remember what the uproar was in the media before this debt ceiling doom/debate? Besides the lack of a jobs bill coming from the house majority party. It was the Paul Ryan budget plan and the right wings assault on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
How has it turned from Ryan and the republicans getting racked over hot coals for their assault on the big three, to Obama and the democrats willing and ready to make cuts to the big three?
This debt ceiling stunt pulled by the republicans and their tea partying cousins, the idiocy of it all, and the lack of bipartisanship, due to the extremists on the right makes the whole government look bad and dysfunctional to the public eye.
To those who pay attention, we know who the villains are, to someone who doesn’t follow politics that much, they look at the scene in DC right now and probably think to themselves “this is exactly why I don’t vote”.
The republicans have, in my opinion, effectively made the big bad government look ineffective and worthless. This is their strategy to further dismantle the government and change peoples ideas of government, while keeping those who don’t vote, away from the voting booths permanently.
In short: Use terrorist type actions to hold a country hostage, knowing that what you are doing will lead many to just hate the government that much more, which is exactly what you wanted all along.
I often wondered what would replace “big government” if Republicans got their dismantle the government wish. Any ideas?
Small government. One “leader” with enough lackeys to guard him and hold him up along with enough military loyalty to make it all stick. Dictator, in a word.
Recommended descriptive of the process and the consequences thereof: William Shirer; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Total privatization of:
* Police Departments
* Fire Departments
* Local Municipalities
* Schools and Education
* The Military
* Ruled and governed by a committee of unelected corporate heads
* The end of agencies such as the EPA, FCC, SEC, FDA, CFPA, CTFC…
* National parks sold off to corporate interests.
* Roads, bridges and Highways sold to corporations, toll booths pop up all over the country.
* Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security gobbled up my private health insurance companies, Wall Street and corporate Hospitals.
Sounds destructive.
I imagine something like Dom DeLuise in History of the World, Part 1.
On the debt ceiling baloney, one tidbit the Democrats invariably ignore except in occasional mention is this basic fact:
HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR 8 YEARS OF GW BUSH, THERE WOULD BE NO DEBT “CRISIS”!! There may not even still be any debt.
Clinton’s legacy was that had things been left alone, the current debt in 2000 would most likely have been paid off in ten or so years, barring any major disastrous interruption.
Then came Dubya.
No disrespect frugal but in my opinion, the democrats need to stop blaming GW Bush and start blaming the republicans of today, many of them who were in the majority for six years under Bush.
As for Clinton, he was the best republican president in history. He gave us the Telecommunications monopoly we have today. He gave us NAFTA. He gave us welfare reform. He gave us weaker unions. He gave us Gramm-Leach-Bliley. He gave us the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, while getting lucky to be the president at a time of the internet boom, which of course eventually turned into a bubble and burst.
Clinton was right about raising taxes and he actually implemented a stronger anti-terrorism task force, but whether we like it or not he signed off on some very horrible legislation, which can be linked to a lot of what is wrong with our economy and Wall Street today.
No argument, IP. My point is simply that the advent of Dubya was the turning point: a right wing President appointed by a right wing court even though he lost the popular vote.
He immediately wiped out Clinton’s budget surplus that was paying off accumulated debt, and then, in eight short years, doubled the nation’s debt.
I agree about Clinton — ‘the best Republican president’. Still, compared to the worst president in US history, he was prince whose legislative faux pas could have been legislatively overcome, probably even on a timely basis, had the right wing not stolen the government in 2000.
The far right wing in US politics — the American fascisti, the current GOP — is the most dangerous enemy the US has ever faced in all of its 230-odd years of history. They make the threat of Russian communism laughable by comparison. But few today who are in public or private opposition dare to point that out, and so it goes unsaid except in back alleys. Still, the fact remains: America will not be safe until the last Republican is strangled with the entrails of the last teabagger. Apologies to Denis Diderot.
You are correct, the current GOP is the most dangerous enemy the US has faced in all of it’s 230 odd years of history. But instead of realizing this the American sheople are told to fear terrorism, socialism, communism, Marxism, Islam, Sharia Law, the redistribution of wealth, illegal immigrants, abortion, gay rights, gay marriage, abortion, gun rights….blah-blah-blah!
The enemy is definitely within.
There is a verse in the book of Revelation where the anti-Christ dies from a fatal head wound and miraculously comes back to life and the world marvels over him/her. What if the anti-Christ is not what many biblical scholars claim it is? What if it’s actually an economic system, perhaps capitalism?
What if the fatal head wound actually represents the crash of 1929 or 2008 or our present debt ceiling or a near future collapse of ours and the world economy?
Hey…it’s Sunday, I just had to throw this out there. 😉
And I will add this: As much as Reagan deserves to be criticized for his assault on the middle and working class, we also need to remember which party was in charge of the Senate and House during the Reagan years.
Where were the democrats back then? Where are they today? Are the republicans that much more intelligent and organized then the democrats?
Even when the democratic party held the majority in the House and Senate for two years it seemed like the republicans were in control. We have a democratic president and a democratic majority in the Senate and it still feels like the republicans are in control.
Why didn’t the democrats use the very same tools of obstructionism while in the minority during the Bush regime? Why are they always seemingly being out maneuvered at every turn?
Would that all Dems be cast in the mold of Bernie Sanders and Raul Grijalva. Unfortunately, they’re not. And therein lies the rub.
..which constitutes a “major disastrous interruption”.
Matt Steinglass implicitly makes the case why we should be conservative about budgets:
“That massive surplus simply never existed. The Clinton administration’s calculations in 2000 that the government would pay off its debt and accumulate savings of $2.3 trillion over the following ten years were wrong. And they were wrong not because of any stupid error or dramatically incorrect theory about the economic world, but simply because they failed to predict that the American economy would experience a financial crisis in 2008, followed by the worst recession since the Great Depression and a historically anaemic recovery. (I assume they failed to predict the 2001 tech-crash recession as well.)
The Clinton administration delivered a couple of years of real verifiable budget surpluses in the late 1990s, and continued surpluses would have shrunk the debt substantially over the decade thereafter, but the huge debt-eliminating budget surpluses they predicted were a mirage. This isn’t particularly surprising; we simply don’t know how to make long-term projections about the economy or government revenues that don’t have trillions of dollars worth of error margin on either side.”
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/07/deficits?fsrc=rss
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/07/deficits?fsrc=rss
I’ve also read of the Clinton surplus being a complete myth. I simply don’t trust government figures or numbers anymore as they can be manipulated so easily to make the government or a party look good or bad.
The blind can’t “foresee” the consequences of global warming and climate change either, apparently, even though they’re as predictable as was the eventual economic crash once Bush and the GOP got the crash ball rolling down the alley.
The human species is, really, a pathetic excuse for a life form. And the wingnuts are even worse than that yet.
<—- My only Anthony Weiner-like beefcake photo, from 1997.
And that's the same link twice up there. — oops.
My photo/gravatar was circa 2003, I obviously was angry and in need of a tan… 😉
Ohhhh baby. 😉
Oh, my…
As my mum used to say when she saw a good-looking guy:
“Mommy, buy me THAT!” 😀
I need to take a closer look…
The C-Span video keeps cutting out on me. What’s going on with the debt ceiling vote?
It’s some kind of roll call? I love roll calls, if I keep watching and listening I’ll know all your senators’ names tonight – so ZEN.
I like “Mr Johnson of Wisconsin” best. Sound so musical. Sorry I’m being silly.
When I was a kid in neighboring Minnesota in the fifties, the joke was (in Scandinavian accent), “Yon Yohnson from Sisconsin.” It appears “the joke” finally got elected. Somehow.
It got voted down, 50 – 49. Bernie Sanders was one of the ‘No’s, for obvious and understandable reasons. Both the R’s proposal and Harry Reid’s proposal are bad, bad bills.
Harry Reid switched his vote to “no” at the last moment, which is how I knew that sucker was going down.
I think it’s rich that the pigs are filibustering these bills, but claim that the Dems are really doing the filibustering. Ugh!
On the front of my dad’s paper, the headline says “GOP leaders, White House shine a ray of hope of debt.” Idiots.
I was just going to say.. What just happened? They didn’t get enough votes.
They all want more details. So do I.
And this all sort of has the same feeling as when they rammed through the Patriot Act following 9/11. Done in a crisis, done quickly, and nobody had a chance to read it. Those that opposed or questioned it (Leahy and Daschle)? Well… Umm, didn’t they get some mail? Laced with a ‘weaponized’ strain of anthrax?
I think they’ve waited till the last minute acting like they are quickly putting together a plan. I say the GOP has had this gameplan ready to go for a long time, and they’ve just waited to the last minute to act on it, to put it into play. Just like the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act was not thrown together quickly in response to 9/11, they had that thing, all 342 pages, bound, on the shelf and ready to go. I think they were just waiting for the ‘opportunity’ (as it was referred to several times on the heels of 9/11 by some such as Condi Rice and Donald Rumsfeld) to put the thing into play.
This is a shift taking place. Call me crazy, but it feels the same. Like yet another step in the dismantling of our democracy.
I agree, Muse. I further suspect there are root tendrils which still extract intimate nourishment from the November 1963 coup d’etat, also from the twin assassinations in April and June of 1968. This is simply the next milestone in the process.
Sounds like a conspiracy theory. Who knows, maybe it all that theoretical?
Yeah, right. Last line: Maybe it’s not all THAT theoretical.
I hate Sunday typos.
It looks like this is the cloture vote.
Shit, I’m trying to watch this thing on my computer, and my dad just came in and turned on the teevee really loud.
I hate this passive/aggressive bullshit.
Zooey use earphones and turn them on really loud. That helps to drown out the passive aggressive.
I think I’ll go get groceries for the old people, so I can cool off for a while. 👿
Happy cooling! 😀
Cloture fails.
The Republicans have filibustered the bill.
Fuckers.
McConnell is such a fucking asshole.
STAY IN THE CAPITAL BUILDING, YOU FUCKING WANKERS, THIS IS IMPORTANT FOR THE DAMN COUNTRY.
I was awed, Zooey, “some members of the house want to leave the capital” They can stay away as far as I am concerned, permanently.
Yesterday I emailed our Rep, Nan Hayworth, and told her that if the Teapublicans don’t care about the country, they can go home and stay home. Among other things, of course.
Five or six years ago I wrote an essay of sorts, titled it “The Death of a Nation.” Two paragraphs from the intro suggest I might have been on the right track, given recent history.
It appears The Death of a Nation remains on schedule.
Excellent, Frugal – I think you need to write a new book.
I’m playing with an idea or two. Lots of material out there on the loose.
..
We seem to be getting glimpses of theZoo denizens human visages!
EV – nice pic.
bdmm – “hubba. hubba”
Ebb, thanks. I decided to keep an eye (or rather two) on all of you. Obviously there’s lots to see and the hedgehog is almost blind anyway.
The hedgehog has kind eyes.
The hedgehog sincerely loves humanity and all things living.
The hedgehog and the pig have much in common.
I thought so, too.
EV’s eyes are the same color that my mom’s were. 🙂
The latest version of a compromise sounds familiar. Essentially, we are postponing the tough choices, and returning to the notion of a bipartisan debt commission to impose some kind of long-term adjustment to taxes and spending that will help us avert fiscal catastrophe. Ummm, helllooo, Bowles-Simpson commission?
Any new commission will HAVE to include some revenue increases, whether the GOP likes it or not. No one comes off very well in this mess. Obama failed to endorse Bowles-Simpson and bargain in January. The Republicans have been spectacularly crazed over revenues, even when no sane person can really believe they are irrelevant. Most of the blame lies with the GOP, but Obama’s dithering and caution bears some responsibility as well. The Community Organizer in him just seems to take over and he wants to be inclusive of everyone’s feelings and goals. He needs to LEAD.
100 thumbs up.
OMG.. Have you guys seen this? It’s a GOP ‘motivational reel’ put together by Bill Maher. This is in response to the GOP freshman House members being shown a clip from “The Town” to motivate them. Yikes..
Yeah, he played it on his show Friday night. That was the show where he had conservative blonde bimbo Margaret Hoover on the panel, who I wanted to bitch slap all the way out onto Fairfax Avenue.
“We’re going to hurt some people”…. like 98% of our nation and the rest of the nations around the globe.
Blair is getting the first instalment of his due
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/blair-to-face-withering-fire-in-iraq-report-2329361.html
I just wanna say I like the middle of EV’s face.
I like what I see… 🙂
“Seeing a Democratic president take taxing the rich off the table and instead push a deal that will lead to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefit cuts is like entering a bizarre parallel universe,” PCCC co-founder Stephanie Taylor said in a statement.
I don’t think any of these progressive sites or organizations understand something crucial about Obama: he’s not a Democratic president, he’s a moderate Republican.
He just happens to have that D after his name.
Hello One and All!
Am I the only one who sees a giant dildo behind George Washington’s head in that picture?
Just me? Okay, sorry to have bothered…
(note to self: need to start dating again 😉 )
Ummm, I hadn’t looked til you mentioned it.
Maybe wooden teeth wasn’t all George had….
no indeed, not the only one
is Washington begging for money? .
Now I see it, too. Hubby won’t approve of me dating, however 😦
Hi EV! No, you probably shouldn’t start dating right now and if I were married I wouldn’t be dating, either!
Jon Stewart In Afghanistan
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-14358719
Nice.
What the Fake Debt Crisis does for our troops:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14356688
It may be foolishly self-imposed but there’s nothing fake about the debt crisis.
Debt Ceiling Authorization Crisis is what I meant
I saw somewhere yesterday or Friday probably that the Debt to GDP is noww about 90%
The real Debt Crisis is not a result of year on year increases in government spending per se, but on government borrowing and spending on enterprises that provide no ROI for the nation—and this is of course all from Republican economic theory that isn;t actually theory, but sheer dogma that has nothing to do with reality and fundamental equations of addition and subtraction, multiplication and division and simple ratios.
Hey, the baggers and ‘pubs are still driving around with now-worn and faded yellow ribbon magnets on their cars. What more do the troops want???
My husband refers to Republicans as “pubs”, too. I do like both terms, baggers and pubs. 😆
In my view they are reduced to pigs.
No offense meant to actual pigs, of course.
If the soldiers don’t get paid, what can they do? Nothing. They are stuck in a foreign country fighting a war. Who gets paid first? Our troops or the private contractors?
.
Outstanding, those are gorgeous blossoms! You are among the things that make one appreciative of nature’s beauty!
Thank-you. I admit I am proud of my lisianthus.
Ebb, speaking of nature etc…
ATTENTION ALL BIRD-LOVING CRITTERS AND ZOO AFFICIONADOS:
Audubon Magazine is having a photo award contest, the categories are BIRDS and BIRDS IN THEIR HABITATS. I believe that there are so many wonderful nature photographers here to give the competition a run for their money. Go to http://www.audubonmagazinephotoawards.org to submit your photos.
I saw a camel grazing in a pasture with horses in Waitsburg, Washington.
I don’t think that counts. 😦
Sharia Law sneaking in, eh?
<— My stud photo. 1952, third grade. I still have the tie; the rest got old and wore out. 🙂
Whatta cutie. 🙂
I love the boots.
They are awesome!
The boots were WATERPROOF! 🙂
If I had to lace up those boots, I’d have been late to school every day.
Frugal – you look like my grandson 🙂 Similar facial features.
Cats, if your given name is either Matilda or Hilma, we should talk. 🙂
Insidious bastards.
Not unless the camel had wings and feathers.
It must have been molting…
.
That would be a great sight! A double take, no doubt, to see a Camel grazing outside of its native land!
Rep Raul Grijalva on the debt ceiling deal.
Not only no, but hell no.
Damn, a man of honor, in Congress no less.
Senate Votes Down Reid Bill, Awaits Obama/McConnell Spending-Cut-Only Debt Limit Bill
Screw it. No mas. It’s time to let the country die. There comes that moment, and this one feels pretty close to right.
wordpress is going strange I can’t load all pages. Maybe time to take a break. See you all later.
OK, this is why we must continue to fight the R agenda, even though some of the folks on our side don’t always seem to be on our side.
While you weren’t looking…
Hey, the debt ceiling fiasco has been some great cover, right?
I wonder what else they did?
They can pass a bill saying oxygen is the exclusive property of the Republican Party in the House. Doesn’t make it a law, of course.
The best thing these fruitless bills do is provide campaign ads for the Democrats.
outstanding, they are doing to your country what saruman did to the shire, while frodo brought the ring to mordor.
Perfect analogy, EV.
Those m-f-ers (as Billo would say.)
Kochsucking asswipes. (as I would say.)
Obama and Bush to be at Ground Zero on 9/11.
Obama will, no doubt, give an inspirational speech.
Bush will do selected readings from The Pet Goat.
Bush will do selected readings from The Pet Goat.
Preceded by 7 minutes of blank stares and fidgeting.
Ah, but HuffPo had an blurb that Georgie has now explained all that, that he wasn’t a deer in the headlights, that he was trying to stay calm for the children and because he knew the camera crews in the back of the classroom were filming him as they were getting calls about the WTC hits.
10 years and that drivel is the best his Daddy’s handlers could come up with?
The last Alarm…for now
Rep Joe Walsh (Teabagger) is a dead beat dad — to the tune of over $117,000.
Wow, I am just shocked. 🙄
And yet, he loudly lectures the President about fiscal responsibility. I don’t want to live in that asshole’s “real America.”
Walsh once again claimed he wasn’t a rich man, despite managing to pay $3,300 per month for a house in upscale Winnetka.
I know Winnetka very well, it’s near my hometown. It’s definitely upscale. When I was in high school and summers home from college we’d go to parties in Winnetka mansions. We called all those people cakeaters.
From what I understand, Walsh also went on some expensive vacations with his girlfriend. Yep, poor, poor Joe.
That’s right, you’ve been gone a few days. Did you catch LO’D’s skewering of Joe “Not paying child support is where Real America is” Walsh – also, life’s been good to me so far:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/30/lawrence-odonnell-joe-walsh_n_914039.html
Awesome. Thanks for that, badmoodman.
This is the deal Reid has agreed to.
Obama is going to have to use the 14th amendment option and face impeachment proceedings by the pigs. *sigh*
WI Rep. Jennifer Shilling’s(D) HQ and We Are Wisconsin local HQ (responsible for D’s GOTV effort) burns to the ground, only ten days before recall election against extremely vulnerable (R) senate incumbent. Must be overzealous matchbook.
http://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/article_b5828580-bacf-11e0-a78e-001cc4c002e0.html
..
oh, they’ve got it covered, don’t you worry:
It will depend on which political leaning the ‘investigators’ hold.
(after the ‘oh we found the votes’ fiasco I place nothing past the WI wicked Walker yahoos).
Is “vagrant” the new term for bagger felons? Because I can’t be convinced that it wasn’t arson.
Gotta hand it to the Baggerati, though. They’ve learned since Nixon that it’s better to just burn the place down than allow the opposition to figure out what was actually stolen…
CNN Quick Vote:
Which party deserves more blame for the U.S. debt-ceiling standoff?
Republicans 56% 126454
No difference 26% 59479
Democrats 18% 41639
Total votes: 227572
Here’s how FoxSaudi would have framed the question/answers:
Which Obama party Obama deserves Obama more Obama blame Obama for the US Obama debt-ceiling Obama standoff Obama?
a) Loyal, fiscally-sound, Conservative voice-of-reason Republicans, and their Founding-Father-Constitution-loving Patriots in the Tea Party?
b) Communist Socialist Librul welfare-loving, spend-happy your-taxes-pay-for-my-grand-lifestyle, want-to-tax-you-more Democrat Party unAmericans?
c) Too dumb and anti-America to answer “a”
Srsly, you should apply to Fux as a poll writer. You’ve really got a knack for it!
.
Good evening, everyone. I just have a few minutes so I didn’t get to look through the thread to see if anyone else caught Grover Norquist’s “brilliant” theory. Apparently the economy is in the crapper because people are afraid they might be “forced” to buy efficient cars and light bulbs. Using his “logic”; I bet we could eliminate the entire national debt within days if the First Lady just made a commercial telling parents to lock their kids in their rooms and feed them nothing but fast food.
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201107310003
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised at the idiocy of repigs.
It’s not so much surprise as an overwhelming sadness that they consistently double down on the crazy and are never called on it. If anyone at ABC had the tiniest smidgen of courage George would have said something like; “get the Hell off my set and don’t come back unless you’re going to speak sensibly”. Seriously, what are they afraid of? Do they really think that their profits depend on keeping Grover, or any of his friends, happy?
It truly makes one wonder just what Nerdquist has hanging over the R’s heads – it certainly can’t just be the pledge they signed.
One would hope that, sooner or later, one of the Rs will catch Nerdquist in HIS bathtub and end this insanity.
Okay, I can dream, can’t I?
I confess.
I have been dense.
I never saw the obvious wisdom of fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now I do. Those civilians need to be killed.
I didn’t see the obvious benefit to cutting taxes for millionaires and billionaires. They may create jobs…someday. Be patient.
The obvious way to fund those priorities was to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans benefits for the lower earning scum. Take from the weak and the powerless. Don’t extend unemployment benefits. The unemployed are lazy and WANT to be unemployed.
I’m grateful that my Republicant enlightened me!
I told you not to fall asleep! The pods!
Yes, that’s it…conservatives = good, liberals = bad…keep repeating it…you’re getting sleepy, sleepier…
(Can’t fall asleep, clowns will eat me!)
Jimmy Fallon and Brian Williams ‘Slow Jam the News’ – this time it’s the debt ceiling.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/brian-williams-and-jimmy-fallon-slow-jam-the-debt-default-crisis/
I love these – if you go to You Tube, there’s a bunch more older ones, just plug in jimmy fallon and brian williams.
Is this fucking appropriate or what? (As usual, I found this looking for something completely different!)
Big Boys Bickering – Paul McCartney
Big boys bickering,
That’s what they’re doin’ ev’ryday.
Big boys bickering,
Fuckin’ it up for ev’ryone, ev’ryone.
Guess while they’re betting on the track,
They’re tryin’ to win your money back.
All of the taxes that you paid,
Went to fund the masquerade.
Big boys bickering,
That’s what they’re doin’ all the day.
Big boys bickering,
Fuckin’ it up in ev’ry way, ev’ry way.
We stand here waiting
Underneath the tower block.
Who will win and who will lose?
Which way do the big boys choose?
Which of us will never know what goes on?
Oo –
Who will win, who will lose?
So while they argue through the night,
Shakin’ their sticks of dynamite,
Babies are dying through the day,
They wanna blow us all away.
Big boys bickering,
And so the game goes on and on.
Big boys bickering,
Fucking it up for ev’ryone, ev’ryone,
For ev’ryone, for ev’ryone, for ev’ryone,
For ev’ryone, ev’ryone.
Fucking it up for ev’ryone,
(fuckin’ it up for ev’ryone)
Fucking it up for ev’ryone,
Ev’ryone, ev’ryone,
Ev’ry, ev’ry, ev’ry, ev’ry, ev’ryone.
“I found this looking for something completely different!” You were looking for some Monty Python stuff?
House, today’s thread was also the result of looking for something completely different. Amazing what’s out there, just waiting for us to trip over it.
Jane, I was looking for another Paul McCartney song, which I will reveal on Friday for Music Night. I heard just a snippet of it on another video, without any ID, so I had to pull up Paul’s musicography and work by process of elimination to find it.
What caused me to find Big Boys Bickering was a vid titled ‘Paul McCartney-banned song’. I never knew this existed until today.
I’m glad that you ran across it. Who banned it?
MTV, the BBC, K-Rock radio.
This is the video about the banning.
Working Class Hero – John Lennon
..
Deal Reached – Details forthcoming…
TPM had some of the details http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/reid-agrees-to-major-debt-limit-deal—-heres-what-hes-signed-off-on.php
Not so fast. This has to get through both caucuses. Good luck.
Yeah, it’ll probably crash and burn in the House. and then so will the country. 😦
..
Obama: Debt Deal Made With Congressional Leaders
I like (snark) the chyron on MSNBC,
Pres.Obama: Debt deal will end crisis & remove cloud over economy
We won’t get rid of the cloud over the economy until we make things here again.
Pretty ironic that they key to a deal are “triggers” when 2 unfunded wars are a huge money suck on our economy.
I’m sick of the whole thing.
Do any of the triggers go against the repigs? Or are they just a toy for the repigs to play with?
If the super-committee tasked with entitlement and tax reform fails to come up with $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction that passes Congress, the “neutron bomb” goes off — spending cuts that will hit the Pentagon budget most deeply, as well as Medicare providers (not beneficiaries) and other programs.
Democrats say if tax reform doesn’t happen through the super-committee, Obama will veto any extension of Bush tax cuts when they come up at the end of 2012, creating an incentive for the super-committee to act. The bad news though, is that Congress, which is universally reviled, will gain power.
It’s like they’re all a bunch of children, who need consequences for not doing their chores.
Actually, I guess that’s exactly what it is, except we all get to suffer for their lazy idiocy.
Damn it! And I thought those triggers were attached to revolvers for the republicans and their tea party cousins to use on themselves…Is this wrong of me to have thought this?
Hey, I was hoping for the same thing.
I don’t know why I found this so funny. I’ve been following a story about the “Grand Compromise” at the local paper’s site and some stupid troll posted this. I would say “you can’t make this shit up” but, obviously, someone did make this shit up.
Wow!! Obama’s PLANNED deficits are about 2 trillion each year for the next ten years, and that doesn’t count the 3-4 trillion Obamacare will cost. Whoopee! At the end of ten years the debt will be somewhere around 35 TRILLION dollars under this “deficit reduction” plan. There better be a resounding “Hell No!” from EVERY congressman who wants to try to save this country!
Oops! I forgot to mention that the stupid troll calls himself “mrspock”. He seems waaaaaay too illogical and dishonest to be a Vulcan.
Quote of the Day II:
“In the short term, everyone suffers politically. In the long term, I think the Republicans have done terrible damage to their brand. Because now they’re thoroughly defined by their most strident voices,” – David Axelrod.
Translation: “We were creamed because we were more responsible than the House GOP with respect to default. But the super-committee will put revenues back on the table and we can take that case to the public next year and win.” I remain skeptical. it’ll be very hard to run for election, promising to raise taxes on the rich. That has never worked in America in modern times.
Maybe enough of us peons will be hurting enough to get our asses into the voting booth.
Maybe…
I was thinking more like millions of people getting off our asses and taking it to the streets. Make it so the media has no choice but to cover us, civil disobedience, Howard Zinn style.
That would be amazing, IP.
Badmoon, you should be a translator! 😉
Of politic speak of course.
That could be an idea for a new progressive news/comedy show via youtube. Have a segment where someone translates the bullshit one of the politicians have recently stated, as Badmoon just did. The rest of the show is spent destroying right wing lies with truth and facts, pointing to the hypocrisy of politics and attacking the corporate owned government and media.
I hate super-committees. The last super-committee sucked out loud.
Wonder who’s going to be on this one, and if there really will be revenues on the table, particularly raising taxes on the uber-wealthy and corporations.
And now for something completely different:
Epic rap battle: John Lennon verses Bill O’Reilly
I really hate Michele Bachmann…
Just say no to batshit insane bitches.
At least she said something. What’s Romney’s position?
Unknown. But subject to future wind direction.
The piggie candidates are being rather quiet these days, aren’t they? 😀
Speaking of Batshit… Bradlee Dean is one of her favorite people and has even offered up public prayers for his continued success. For those of you unfamiliar with the name, Bradlee Dean, he’s the homophobic self-proclaimed Christian rocker who has been banned by schools because he claims he’s going to talk about the dangers of drugs but, once inside, preaches about the evils of homosexuality, abortion, and everything that doesn’t fit his view of Christianity. He’s also suing Rachel Maddow because she called him homophobic. Jake is his partner and, apparently, teaches about the Constitution when he gets tired of gay-bashing.
http://www.dumpbachmann.com/2011/07/michele-bachmann-bradlee-dean-lingo.html
That clown IS homophobic. He won’t win that case — Rachel spoke the truth.
Re teh gay, I think he doth protest too much…
What Rachel [Maddow] did in this is – she was intending to cause physical and other harm to us.”
Hee hee.
I wonder what voices SHE’S been listening to. Whatever they are, she should just say NO to them. She really is insane, and her freaking idiot husband is, too. Maybe instead of trying to ‘pray away teh gay’, he should try praying away teh crazy in Michele.
I find it hilarious that the Fabulous Marcus calls himself a “councilor”. If either of them strayed into a real psych ward they would end up strapped to the floor and pumped full of Thorazine.
Speaking, again, of the Fabulous Marcus… Has anyone heard an explanation of why Medicare and Medicaid are making payments to a Khristian Kounciling Klinic? Is he being paid to pray for his victims. I mean “patients”.
It depends on how the ‘treatment’ was presented for payment. They’d have to use traditional CPT (Current Procedural Terminology).
Thus billing such as: code 90806 which is 45-50 minutes of office-based outpatient psychotherapy.
As long as the CPT were used – Marcus would be paid for that set session (of course he’d not mention the Christian faith healing or whatever it is he does to ‘change the gay’. That would nullify any payment as not recognized medical treatment).
Heh – now THAT’s something I’d like to see! 😀
On Dec. 31, 2012, three weeks before the end of Obama’s current term, the Bush tax cuts expire. Income tax rates will return to their Clinton-era levels. That amounts to a $3.6 trillion tax increase over 10 years, three or four times the $800 billion to $1.2 trillion in revenue increases that Obama and Boehner were kicking around. And all Democrats need to do to secure that deal is…
nothing.
At least it’s after election day.
I wish Congress would do more nothing.
Sigh. It sounds like the “librul media” is claiming that the “debt deal” didn’t cut enough. Of course, they fail to mention that, historically, raising the debt limit has been a formality that hasn’t been used to force through an agenda. They also utterly fail to make it clear that the spending limit has no effect on the debt and/or deficit.
I wonder if the Reichwhiners have any understanding of the whole concept. They keep saying we’re “broke” or “bankrupt”. Is someone broke or bankrupt because they have a mortgage even though they are making the payments?
Who really controls America – George Carlin