The Watering Hole, Monday, September 30th, 2013: “UBUNTU”

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I know that Wayne posted this on yesterday’s Sunday Roast, but it bears another look – especially in light of the myriad inhumane arguments, diatribes, and lies rising to a cacophonic crescendo over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare.” Just look at so many of the self-serving and ignorant comments on Think Progress’s various threads about the ACA. It’s getting to the point where I think I’d rather live in a more simple society where greed and selfishness are not idealized.
ubuntu

These children put the childish “adults” running/ruining our country to shame. It seems that those who supposedly revere our founding fathers have forgotten one of the earliest ideals of this once-great country, as depicted in the Great Seal of the United States:
Great Seal of the United States

“E Pluribus Unum”: “Out of many, one.”

“Ubuntu”: “I am because we are.” Even those children understand the basic concept of what a workable society should be, and are living it. Why the fuck can’t we?

This is our daily open thread. I’m totally disgusted – how about you?

121 thoughts on “The Watering Hole, Monday, September 30th, 2013: “UBUNTU””

  2. “E Pluribus Unum”: “Out of many, one.”

    If you’re a 1%er, it makes perfect sense.
    To rest of us, we think your brain is wired wrong.

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  7. I’m skeptical of stories like this. “an anthropologist”…who? where in Africa? when? I tried checking it out on Snopes, but they haven’t posted anything on it yet. It is a good ‘feel good” story, & I hope it checks out as having a basis in reality. If anyone can find the original source, I would appreciate it.

    On a different note, it looks like negotiating with Iran and Syria is easier than negotiating with TeaBaggers.

    Republicans in the House want to delay Obamacare for 1 year, so they can pull off this same stunt right before the 2014 elections.

    It’s all about depriving the most people in the most painful ways possible so that the rich can take and keep more of this country’s wealth.

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    • Hmmmm….General Grant? the alcoholic? Or General “Scorched Earth” Sherman…

      maybe General Custer, whose own arrogance & ignorance lead to his downfall?

      And we all know the Germans didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor – they invaded the Faulklands!

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  9. Capitalism is our downfall. It institutionalizes greed as a way of allowing us to avoid solving problems. “The market” sorts things out so we don’t have to be bothered.

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    • Unregulated capitalism is our downfall. Regulated, captialism (read, greed) has been the greatest motivator for technological advances, second only to war.

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  10. QOTD:

    “Even when pressed to do something overwhelmingly likely to end in disaster, as this shutdown looks likely to do for Republicans, the party has no way to stop itself. It stumbles into fights it cannot win, gets mad, and then in its anger lurches into yet another fight that ends in yet another loss.

    Republicans who want to fight smarter are called squishes; Republicans who wish to fight less are called RINOs—and both have been hunted pretty near to extinction. Instead of effective opposition, we see those doomed spasms. And out of these spasms, Obamacare looks sturdier than ever—and any hope of negotiating to fix its worst elements seemingly further out of reach than ever.” — David Frum

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  12. 40+ votes in the House to repeal ObamaCare, repeatedly taking the country to the brink of collapse – to end ObamaCare.

    But it is quite a distraction from the news that Syria is going to give up chemical weapons – without the U.S. bombing them. (Another ‘win’ for Obama?)

    Republicans would have gained more votes if they had taken the $50 million they’ve spent in fuitle votes to repeal ObamaCare and instead created 50 millionaires, selected at random.

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  14. I’m starting to wonder about Yahoo’s news feed. It seems to be getting more and more right-leaning.

    The picture shows Obama.

    The headline asks “Who gets blamed for government shutdown?”

    The awkwardly worded caption reads: “More Americans aren’t pointing their fingers at Obama, a new poll shows.”

    If you just skim this, it sees like the answer IS Obama. Perhaps sloppy tease-style editing, or perhaps an agenda at play?

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  15. This may get me in trouble but what the hell.
    Truthouts version. http://truth-out.org/news/item/19113-house-stands-firm-against-obamacare-senate-wont-budge-shutdown-looms

    My version: Washington – Republicans rallied around a case of scotch early Sunday to delay the hangover for another year, storming toward a dive bar with Democrats that looked increasingly like binge drinking to shut down their livers when the current fiscal year ends Monday night.
    Republicans in the House of Representatives showed unusual unity in their choice of single malt.
    The House, in a rapid-fire series of drinking games that stretched past midnight, puked 248 to 174 to permanently install Wild Turkey in the drinking fountains then mooned each other 231 to 192 to delay the law for a year. The House was also expected to approve a measure to assure John Boehner his tan will remain unaffected if the government shuts down.
    The binge followed a day when Republicans, divided about whether to drink single malt or blended scotch and puke another time, came together behind a carefully-crafted effort to put bourbon in Democrats glasses. The Senate is not scheduled to s0ber up until Monday afternoon, 10 hours before the DT’s begin. Democrats who control the liquor store said they wouldn’t negotiate or consider the House proposal, leaving no apparent bottle behind to compromise on either side in the waning hours before booze runs out for many parts of the government not on automatic spending such as Social Security or considered essential such as the military.
    The White House threatened rehab for the Republicans, and Press Secretary Jay Carney “worked to pin the tail on the elephant. “Any member of the Republican Party who pukes is out of this drinking game,” he said. “It’s time for the House to stop giving the finger to the American people and act, as the Senate has, in a drunken way to stop passing gas and making fart jokes that keeps the government running and get their heads off of the toilet seat.”
    In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Senate would not agree to a kegger.
    “Today’s drunken binge by House Republicans is pointless,” he said. “As I have said repeatedly, the Senate will moon any Republican attempt to force changes to the Affordable Care Act through a mandatory government funding bill or the debt ceiling. Furthermore, President Obama has stated that he would confiscate any booze that ever reached his desk. To be absolutely clear, the Senate will reject both the one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act and the repeal of the marital aid device tax.”
    Government agencies have begun preparing for a shutdown. Monuments, national parks and museums could begin closing. About 40 percent of the federal workforce of 2 million people could be furloughed without pay. Social Security checks could be delayed.
    The Senate grilled steaks on Friday, passing a budget that keeps the government open until Nov. 15 and funding Obamacare.
    House Republican leaders for weeks have binged and purged avoiding the kind of anorexia that’s evolving, realizing the American public is eager for a lynching. But Saturday, after days of alcoholic withdrawals trying to find a urinal in a bitterly divided dive bar, House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio seemed to realize he had no other choice. The next move, he said, was up to Democrats.
    “The American people don’t want drunky the bear, and they don’t want Obamacare,” Boehner and other House Republican leaders said in a statement. “It’sh zup to the Shenate to pash it and stop making fart jokes.” He slurred.
    The scotch brought together, at least for the moment, two warring sides of the Republican Party. There was still talk that Boehner could bring the Senate hangover to the House floor at the last minute Monday night and pass it like a kidney stone with a handful of Republican votes and a strong Democratic showing. Republicans have a 233 to 200 majority, meaning if all Democrats went along, seventeen Republicans would rather pass a kidney stone.
    Those votes could come from a group of veteran booze hounds, who’s alcoholic stupor see little political gain because they didn’t pay for any of the scotch.
    “I’m hopeful that normal people are going to prevail,” said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., a moderate who routinely is at odds with his tea party colleagues. He also stated that there are no normal people in Washington.
    Republican farts were set on fire by Democrats. “It’s time for this temper tantrum, Mr. Speaker, to end and for you to get your orange ass into rehab – there must be some cooler people with better tans here on the other side,” Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., told House colleagues.
    The more vocal, more conservative faction of the Republican party had been urging Saturday’s action, and continued to insist they won’t give in. “I’ll continue to fight Obamacare by any means possible,” insisted Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas. When asked what year it is, he replied 1813.
    The one year delay makes sense, they argued, because parts of the law have already been put off and we enjoy hurting our own constituents.
    In July, the Obama administration announced it was delaying for a year the employer mandate requiring larger companies to offer employees insurance. Thursday, the administration said small businesses will not be able to enroll in a health care plan until November, rather than next month which, is not unreasonable.
    Why not a more scotch, many Republicans asked?
    “Number One, it would allow us to have an angry, drunken and unintelligent conversation about the monster living under your bed the affordable care bill has become,” said Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y. “I think that way would scare the shit out most people, and allow a real dishonest discussion to happen, which I think would be good for the lobbyists and be good policy for a very few wealthy people.”
    If he rejected further extortion, Obama would have an easy time justifying rehab for Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio. “He’ll really have to answer to the American people,”
    Ending the marital aid device tax is a tactic designed to at least make Democrats think again about changing the budget plan. In March, the Senate voted, 79-20, to endorse its repeal. Democrats are being pressed by marital aid device suppliers to end the 2.3 percent tax, which went into effect this year. Republicans think repeal could be hard for senators to resist.
    “What will move this is Democrat senators who put pressure on Reid,” said Rep. Richard Hudson, a Republican freshman from Charlotte, N.C. “This marital aid device tax may be what they need.”
    The military provision was crucial to winning support from a handful of Halliburton Republicans concerned about the impact of a shutdown on service personnel.
    “We have to be sure our military has the things they need to carry out their missions and kill, kill, kill. I’ll be talking as long as I can remain semi-coherent,” said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Bucks like a bronco” McKeon, R-Calif

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  18. Sadly, there will a lot of innocent people who will suffer from this but if it causes the sort of shake up that finally mails the Republican/Tea Potty coffin shut we will have a chance to recover.

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    • From your fingers to the FSM’s noodliness.

      This shutdown is getting FAR more exposure than the ’94 shutdown, due to the facebook, the twitters, and the YouTube. Unless people got a lot more stupid since ’94 — which is a definite possibility — the repiggies are DOOMED.

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  21. “E. Pluribus Unum” — I took Latin for two years whilst in HS back in the fifties, and I can still sort of translate it into English (barely), and I understand the ‘out of many, one,’ thingee. But how might one say “Out of One, Many”? ‘E. Unum, Pluribus”? And isn’t that what we here in Amurka are supposed to be about? Each One, an EQUAL part of the Many?

    Seems to me, if that’s the case, that the 99 percent need official permission to milk the freakin’ 99 percent’s cow, bigtime, bad, and NOW. No wonder they like Republicans!

    What am I missing here, in the ‘All Men are Created Equal’ realm?

    Oh. Wait. I’m not a neo-fascist, obsessed with racial hatred, with power; I’m not obsessed with my own (or any else’s, for that matter) presumed ‘superiority.’

    Yeah, OK, never mind. I get it.. I guess. Sort of.

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  22. While the recent debate has focused on Obamacare, that is just the latest in a series of demands made by Republicans. The following is a list of things that have been, at various times, demanded by Republicans under threat of a government shutdown or default:

    1. A balanced budget amendment

    2. Approving Keystone XL

    3. Eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood

    4. Medicare privatization

    5. Tax reform, as outlined by Paul Ryan

    6. The REINS Act, which would require Congress to approve significant federal regulations

    7. Means-testing Social Security

    8. Defunding Obamacare

    9. Allowing employers to eliminate insurance coverage for birth control

    10. An expansion of off-shore drilling

    11. Preserving all the Bush tax cuts

    12. “Trillions” in budget cuts

    13. Slashing funding for food stamps

    14. Protecting mountaintop strip mining

    15. Stripping the EPA of authority to regulate greenhouse gases

    16. Loosening regulation on coal ash

    17. Delaying Obamacare implementation by one year

    18. Repealing a tax on medical devices

    19. Eliminating Social Service Block Grants

    20. Expanding drilling on federal lands

    21. Restricting the child tax credit

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  23. Ruh Roh…

    Rick Perry is one such conservative Republican. He’s made no secret of the fact that he’d like to outlaw abortion forever. But perhaps luckily for the women of Texas, there’s a moderating influence right next to Perry: his wife, Anita:

    Texas First Lady Anita Perry told an interviewer on Saturday that she believes it is “a woman’s right” to have full control of her reproductive health. When asked at the Texas Tribune Festival if she believed abortion should be a personal choice, Perry said, “I mean, I think that yeah, that could be a woman’s right. Just like it’s a man’s right if he wants to have some kind of procedure.”

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  24. Earlier today I e-mailed little Eric Can’tor and urged him to pass a clean CR. I used my business e-mail address. The farm never gets spam and has never been used to sign petitions or such, yet already Eric has passed my address to GOP.com which is now sending me crap like this “But rather than admit that ObamaCare has been an absolute failure and allow for a one year delay of the entire law, Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi would rather shut down the government.” and asking for money. Thanks Eric! Fucking weasel.

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  26. Seen in comments on the Washington Post:
    “Breaking News:
    -House Republicans proceed with Cruzificion of America. “

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  27. What Congress does over the next couple of days could either avoid or trigger a government shutdown. Either way, at some point after the crisis is resolved, the House and Senate are likely take up the following proposals, all of which would have lasting effects on anyone saving for retirement.

    Automatic enrollment in IRAs
    The president’s 2014 budget would require employers in business for at least two years that have more than 10 employees to offer an automatic IRA option to employees.

    Contributions would be made to an IRA on a payroll-deduction basis. If an employer already offers a plan, it wouldn’t have to comply with this regulation, but if its current plan excludes certain segments of its employees from participating in the plan, the employer would have to begin to offer the automatic IRA to those excluded employees, according to an assessment by KPMG.

    Obama included this provision in the 2014 budget because he wanted to turn the tide on a rising retirement crisis in the United States. According to a Treasury report, the number of U.S. workers participating in an employer-sponsored retirement plan has remained stagnant for decades at no more than about half the total workforce.

    http://www.benefitspro.com/2013/09/27/obamas-budget-calls-for-big-changes-to-401ks-iras?eNL=5245f6ce140ba0ca2f00002c&utm_source=BenefitsProDaily&utm_medium=eNL&utm_campaign=BenefitsPro_eNLs&_LID=150916014

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  28. I turned over to MSNBC just in time to see Obama’s statement about what he expects of Congress before the deadline tonight. No appearance of any caving in to any demand whatsoever.

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  32. Well, Thom Hartmann made me cut off his show because he had some fuckwit from The Daily Caller who wouldn’t shut up and kept interrupting. Why does he think any fan of his wants to hear that?
    Friday night he had a whole hour about environmental issues and global warming, and it was all learning. Those are the shows he needs to replicate, not this low-grade Crossfire crap.

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    • May I offer a suggestion? E-mail Thom and explain to him, calmly and without resorting to any kind of name-calling, exactly why you find it unpleasant, if not impossible, to listen to his show when he has guests who behave as his did today. If he never gets feedback from his audience, he’ll never know why they go away. I like him and I don’t get to hear enough of him. I like the way he explains things and think his show is very good. But he can’t let his show get hijacked by guests who won’t debate honestly and respectfully. It sounds like the RWNJ guest was trying to provoke Thom into being verbally abusive back to him, which is highly unlikely to happen.

      Or don’t. The choice is yours. 🙂

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  33. Right Wing paranoia and insanity about the current economic difficulties in America are weird. According to their legend we have somehow created a massive number of Americans who are leeching from the country, many of whom are on Social Security and Medicare. In spite of the fact that both systems have separate taxes that people have been paying into for decades, they are the source of our economic woes. Millions of Americans, paying their SSI and Medicare taxes are killing us.
    The fact we have had two foreign incursions that have cost us over 2 trillion dollars in the last decade can’t be a factor. That we spent hundreds of billions bailing out too big too fail companies evidently is a pittance. That we spend over half of every tax dollar supporting the military and security agencies is just the cost of being the most powerful nation on the planet that no one can fight.
    We have to understand realistic priorities. If you smoke pot you will most likely stand a chance of going to a privatized prison to help maintain the minimum occupancy requirements for their contract. Rip off millions from retirement accounts and you will get a bonus. Get sick and you will probably lose everything you have ever worked for but you can own as many guns as you want.
    But the real bottom line is Americans exist to protect America. Your country owes you shit if you aren’t paying your way. And if God isn’t on your side, it doesn’t matter how rich you are. Try being rich and gay and get married in most states. The richest, most powerful haven of freedom and democracy in the entire world, ever offers protection to anyone who can afford it. And toilet paper without wood chips.

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  35. Chris Hayes opens with the National Review guy saying Peter King is a ‘veteran moderate of the House’.
    He’s had this same jackass on in his first segment nearly every day lately.

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    • The sad fact is that Pete King has become what now passes for a “moderate” in the GOP. He mostly just hates Muslims whereas the ideologically pure GOoPers hate just about everyone.

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  36. The House Republicans are complaining that the ACA should apply equally to all parties without exceptions. All right, Obama should reverse the one year delay for large businesses, restore the elimination of the caps he allowed to stay, and say the Congress has to use the exchanges just like everyone else. No exceptions for anyone! I have no problems with any of those.

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  40. House repiggies are disgusting. They are thrilled to be shutting down the government.

    If anyone running against them in the future doesn’t use their words and video to expose them, then they don’t deserve to win.

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  45. The R’s have gone crazy, and President Obama did a good job of pointing that out tonight. Even if he capitulated to all the angst, delay, and suffering that will result from the decision to take our economy hostage, what would be gained? The funding of the necessary functions of government for three more months.

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    • and at the end of those three months, new damands to further dismantle ObamaCare, cut taxes for the rich and eliminate the social safety net.

      fuggem. fuggem all!

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      • Cruz has been spewing the President and the Dems are holding the country hostage. The OrangeBoy spouts Americans want what the Repugnant party wants and that it is the President who is the person shutting down the government…
        Eff the effers….just eff ’em

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