Bad News
by tristero
Yes, the Republican party has sunk to a new low in approval polls.
But what that means is that, on average, 28 of the next 100 cars coming at you on the highway are being driven by people so completely unhinged from reality that they actually think Boehner, Cruz, Cantor, and the rest of that Whole Sick Crew are doing a pretty good job.
That’s scary.
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WWI Vets don’t all agree with Michele Bachman
by digby
Maybe today’s Republicans don’t know that the Greatest Generation went through the depression and WWII and their president throughout both was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, not Ronald Reagan. Eisenhower was to the left of Barack Obama. JFK, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, Ford — all of them — were more liberal than any of today’s Republicans.
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QOTD: right wing idiot
by digby
“I don’t think that the government should be involved in health care or health insurance,” says Greg Collett, a 41-year-old software developer in Caldwell, Idaho, who would rather pay the fine for now — $95 the first year — than signup….
Collett counts himself among the 29 percent of people who said in an NBCNews/Kaiser poll they are angry about the health reform law. “The issue for me is that it is not the proper role of government,” he said.
Collett, who is married and has 10 children, says the kids are covered by Medicaid, the joint state-federal health insurance plan for people with low income and children who are not covered.
Collett, whose children are home-schooled, likens taking Medicaid to sending children to public school. He also does not approve of government-funded public schools. “The government is taking your money. They are spending it on things they shouldn’t be,” he says. “Trying to get whatever you can back — I have nothing against that. You have to at some point try and get your tax dollars back.”
In a nutshell: “My tax dollars are only for things I want them to pay for, which is me and my family.”
Jon Stewart addressed this concept last night:
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Madman Theory
by digby
There are conversations under way as to what we will discuss, you know, what we will negotiate over, what things will be on the table. But what we said is – open the government, pay our bills and let’s have this honest conversation,” said Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, of Illinois, who serves as Senate Majority Whip.
What Durbin does not want to see is catastrophic tactics taken every time a major policy or debt ceiling negotiation fails.
“This is going to come over and over again. And if each time we lay off 800,000 federal workers, or end up interrupting the services of this government, or jeopardizing our international credit rating, it’s disastrous for a great country like America,” said Durbin.
“The president is trying to establish a standard of conduct that is reasonable and bipartisan and puts everything on the table. I think that’s the way to approach it,” said Durbin.
Not that I think there’s anything wrong with establishing a standard of conduct that is reasonable. I just can’t for the life of me figure out what will keep the GOP from doing this again if after all is said and done they end up getting yet another round of spending cuts (whatever they are) for their trouble. Why won’t they see that as proof that they can get at least some of what they want as long as they are prepared to bring the government to the brink whenever possible?
I guess everyone can pretend that making the GOP publicly vote for a temporary CR and agreeing to extend the debt limit before the agreement to cut spending (or whatever this “conversation” produces) is announced will fool all of them into thinking they lost and they’ll be so demoralized they’ll change their ways. And it’s true that the Tea Partiers are pretty dumb. But I wouldn’t count on it.
A coupla “No Labels” congressmen talked to Chris Matthews yesterday as well. Matthews asked what their exit strategy was — something that would “at least get us through the holidays”
Republican Ribble(Wisconsin):You know Chris, I actually met with the Speaker and had a good conversation with him. My own plan would be to address the true drivers of our long term fiscal condition which would be entitlements. I think there’s truly broad agreement on some of the reforms necessary to actually reform Social security and my advice tot he speaker is that we look at that one kind of completely drill right into it and craft the policy and take that 9.6 or 10 trillion dollars of unfunded obligations and secure and save Social security for the next 75 years. It can be done, this is a perfect time to do it because you have divided government so one side or the other will not be forcing a fix on the other side.
Matthews said the president isn’t willing to just sit down and just “fix” entitlements. That he wants something in return, some kind of revenue or something.
Democrat Schrader(Oregon):I don’t think congressmen on [either] side of the aisle expect this to be my way or the highway. That’s the beauty of the rank and file discussions that are going on.We’re talking about listening to each other for a change. Entitlement reform includes not only dealing with reforms to a system that was developed before the baby boomers became a reality or a concern but the revenue sources were also developed before the baby boomers became a concern… the president’s willing to talk, I think Republican leadership’s willing to talk, it’s just that the extremes at both ends are controlling the dialog.
Yeah the liberal “extreme” is really wielding its massive power in this one …
I think it’s hilarious that they think the baby boom requires that they “fix” SS for the next 75 years. I’m fairly sure all of us baby boomer assholes will be long gone by then, but you never know. Maybe Obamacare will keep us all alive past 130. Unfortunately, the longer we live, the poorer these “reforms” will make us. (Oh wait, they plan to make old women the new “welfare queens” to be derided as parasites by right wing assholes everywhere, so we’ll at least be good for something.)
The question of why these people feel the need to “fix” something that isn’t in crisis and is contributing absolutely nothing to our current woes (like 10% real unemployment) is probably best addressed to Pete Peterson and the rest of the bipartisan political establishment that keeps waving Social Security cuts around like a great big bloody piece of raw meat every time they feel the need to “do something.” I certainly cannot explain this ridiculous obsession.
Those No Labels guys are organizing around this. The idea seems to be that they will vote for a temporary reprieve of the hostage crisis with the understanding that Grand Bargain negotiations will immediately commence. The New Dems are very excited:
Joined dozens of Reps & Dems as @NoLabelsOrg Problem Solvers to urge Congress to end this shutdown.#FixNotFight #ga12 pic.twitter.com/lLbcpvGcii
— John Barrow (@repjohnbarrow) October 10, 2013
Here’s the latest dishonest, unctuous economic gibberish from the Very Serious Paul Ryan:
I’m going to guess I don’t need to tell my readers what a load of BS that is, and if you read on you’ll see it’s even worse than you think. The fact that he says cutting Social security will pay down the debt when it has its own funding stream should be enough to make anyone throw this little “Case for Structural Reform” on the rubbish pile and set it on fire. But the rest of that stuff about interest rates is just daft. (Who does he thinks owns the social security debt, Auric Goldfinger?)
But he does use a specific term in this ridiculous screed that is worth noting, at least in passing. He calls this problem “structural” which you may recall is the same word used by the president lo those many years ago when he first described his grand bargain:
What we have to do is to take a look at our structural deficit, how are we paying for government? What are we getting for it? And how do we make the system more efficient?”
Meanwhile the Democratic pundits are getting very excited:
VAN JONES: Well, you know, I can’t debate with you about the past, because you were here and I wasn’t here. But I do think this president is smarter than people are giving him credit for.
I think this president looked at that Republican Party, saw a lot of dysfunction and said, “I’m not going to negotiate with that Republican Party” and held them at bay, and now you’re seeing better voices in the Republican Party come out. You saw Paul Ryan with a very constructive proposal today. Coburn’s coming out.
Right. The President held off the crazies who insisted on defunding his signature policy, something that anyone with two functioning brain cells knew would never happen, and now they’re all ready to sit down and talk about cutting Social Security with the Very Serious Paul Ryan. I’d laugh if it wasn’t so awful.
We don’t know that this can actually go anywhere. Just because a bunch of mushy no-labels losers are getting together means nothing in itself. And just because Paul Ryan has decided to try to talk sense into his loony Tea Partiers and persuade them that they can make the Democrats do their dirty word for them if they play their cards right, doesn’t mean they will listen. They never have before.
But the idea that the President did something wily by refusing to defund Obamacare is pretty funny. If anyone’s done anything wily, it’s the Republicans who deployed Nixon’s madman theory and seem to have persuaded the Democratic establishment that if they just pretend a “deal” to cut Social Security (and God knows what else) isn’t a vindication of their shutdown strategy, the crazies will never do it again. I eagerly await the Democratic victory dance. They really know how to cha-cha-cha.
Update: Howie has more on this.
The L.A. Times gets journalism right on climate change
by David Atkins
We at Hullabaloo spend a lot of time criticizing the media for giving equal shrift to both sides of an argument, even when one side is patently wrong. But I’ve always been a believer in praising people who do the right thing as well–after all, why would anyone listen to someone who only ever criticizes?
In that spirit, I think the L.A. Times deserves a round of applause for refusing to publish letters from climate deniers, and for doing so in the interest of good journalism:
A piece this weekend debunking the claim that Congress and the president are exempted from Obamacare has drawn a harsh reaction from some readers and conservative bloggers. But their umbrage wasn’t with the piece’s explanation of why letters making this claim do not get published.
Rather, they were upset by the statement that letters “[saying] there’s no sign humans have caused climate change” do not get printed…
As for letters on climate change, we do get plenty from those who deny global warming. And to say they “deny” it might be an understatement: Many say climate change is a hoax, a scheme by liberals to curtail personal freedom.
Before going into some detail about why these letters don’t make it into our pages, I’ll concede that, aside from my easily passing the Advanced Placement biology exam in high school, my science credentials are lacking. I’m no expert when it comes to our planet’s complex climate processes or any scientific field. Consequently, when deciding which letters should run among hundreds on such weighty matters as climate change, I must rely on the experts — in other words, those scientists with advanced degrees who undertake tedious research and rigorous peer review.
And those scientists have provided ample evidence that human activity is indeed linked to climate change. Just last month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a body made up of the world’s top climate scientists — said it was 95% certain that we fossil-fuel-burning humans are driving global warming. The debate right now isn’t whether this evidence exists (clearly, it does) but what this evidence means for us.
Simply put, I do my best to keep errors of fact off the letters page; when one does run, a correction is published. Saying “there’s no sign humans have caused climate change” is not stating an opinion, it’s asserting a factual inaccuracy.
That’s not to say that scientific consensus isn’t occasionally proven to at least partially incorrect. But the proper place to litigate that isn’t newspapers and letters to the editor: it’s in scientific journals and peer review. Human knowledge is an imperfect thing, but all we can do is base policy on the science as we currently understand it to the best of our ability.
The last 30 years of painstaking research on the climate shows overwhelmingly that anthropogenic climate change is real, and that its consequences are extremely dangerous for most life on earth if left unchecked. There’s basically no dispute on this front in the scientific community; if there is a dispute, it must come from fellow scientists, not random hacks in the service of the oil industry or the conservative media machine.
The role of journalism is to sort fact from fiction, as best determined by scientific consensus.
Wild and irresponsible accusations of moon landing hoaxes don’t belong in the letters to the editor section, and neither do climate change denialist rants.
The L.A. Times got this one right. Hopefully other major media publications will soon follow suit.
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The grown-ups are back in town
by digby
These are the people the Villagers feted like royalty and portrayed as exemplars of decency and rectitude for decades:
Conservatives gathered at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan Monday night to roast the former vice president at an event where many of the biggest laugh lines touched on the most controversial policies of a key architect of his administration’s war on terror. At the gathering, hosted by Commentary, figures including former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey drew a mix of chuckles and winces with jokes that left few lines uncrossed, according to three guests.
Former Sen. Joe Lieberman “said something to the effect that it’s nice that we’re all here at the Plaza instead of in cages after some war crimes trial,” recalled one person who was there.
Other major targets included former Secretary of State Colin Powell, mocked for leaking, and President Barack Obama, who was mocked, repeatedly, for the relative strength of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The event, sponsored by Rupert Murdoch, Paul Singer, and other top conservatives (listed here) also starred Lieberman and Scooter Libby, the Cheney aide convicted of lying to investigators in a leak hunt. Two attendees said the edgy jokes were in appropriate spirit of a roast; the third found them in poor taste, even in that setting. The dinner was, to the surprise of some guests, punctuated by a live performance of Yiddish songs and by an video featuring Cheney’s face on others’ bodies, which emcee and Commentary editor John Podhoretz joked he would release only for $1 million in an email to BuzzFeed.
“There were some waterboarding jokes that were really tasteless,” the guest said. “I can see the case for enhanced interrogation techniques after Sept. 11 but I can’t really endorse sitting there drinking wine and fancy dinner at the Plaza laughing uproariously about it.”
Cheney himself told one waterboarding joke, the attendees said, which he attributed to Jay Leno. It centered on a one-shot antelope hunting contest in Wyoming in which the loser had to dance with an Indian squaw. Cheney’s shot got caught in the barrel, producing a dispute over whether it counted as a hit or a miss — and Leno, according to Cheney, joked that Cheney wanted to go catch the animal with his bare hands and waterboard it.
Separately, Rumsfeld joked about Cheney waterboarding fish.
Other jokes touched on Cheney’s having shot a friend in the face; Rumsfeld said one guest recalled that Cheney had “finally showed the world that he actually has a heart” in a book about his health.Libby, for his part, made light of his imprisonment — and lack of a presidential pardon.
“Libby said George Bush sent a note: ‘Pardon me, I can’t make it,’” one guest recalled.
Libby also joked that Cheney’s dog had urinated in a cabin at Camp David, and that Cheney had sought a pardon — and Bush refused.A couple people made the point that Vladimir Putin is now running American foreign policy.
It was, said another attendee, “a very sentimental night.”
No, that is not from the Onion.
Think about this: according to current conventional wisdom, these are the sane conservatives. The ones who think torture is a joke.
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QOTD: Mitch McConnell
by digby
“I think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting. Most of us didn’t think that. What we did learn is this — it’s a hostage that’s worth ransoming. And it focuses the Congress on something that must be done.”
— Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), quoted by the Washington Post, on the debt ceiling negotiations.
On the same day, The Fix carried this headline:
Yeah, what do they know?
The White House is refusing to negotiate over raising the debt limit after the “mistake” of doing so in 2011, according to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.
While Congress had previously used the debt limit to make arguments about fiscal policy, Lew argued on “Fox News Sunday” that the 2011 battle represented a dramatic change that cannot be repeated.
President Obama said in 2011 he wanted a “clean” debt limit increase without added policy proposals, but ultimately the debate was dragged into a broad fiscal fight that went down to the wire, resulting in the first-ever downgrade of the nation’s credit rating.
“It was a mistake in 2011 to have that debate, it hurt the economy,” Lew said on Sunday. “2011 was the first time there was a debate about whether or not to default, where there was one side actually arguing default could be managed, that’s just wrong.”
h/t to @sahilkapur
Wolf Blitzer and CNN are opinion journalism. They’re just terrible opinion journalism.
Wolf Blitzer, on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act:
“If they had three years to get this ready, if they weren’t fully ready, they should accept the advice Republicans are giving them, delay it for a year, get it to work there are health insurance sites that work great,” Blitzer said. “If they didn’t get it ready in time, make sure to get it right.”
It hardly needs to be said that just about every major program like this has had kinks to work out in the beginning, including Medicare Part D and Medicare itself. An online implementation this far-reaching that also has to work with private insurance sites is going to have problems at first that often can’t be sussed out until it goes live. Delaying it a year won’t fix that. None of which even touches the principle involved that if the President gives in to this hostage-taking now, it will change the face of American government for the forseeable future.
On a broader note, though, this is a good illustration that goes to the heart of the problem with CNN. CNN likes to bill itself as a straight news organization, one that doesn’t veer into partisan opinion journalism like Fox News or MSNBC.
The problem is that CNN is opinion journalism. It’s just insufferable, conventional wisdom repeating, corporate-friendly opinion journalism. Anderson Cooper, Wolf Blitzer and the rest consistently repeat their opinions. Just today, during a discussion of Janet Yellen that focused almost entirely on whether she was too far left for the job, Wolf Blitzer quickly intoned that it’s important to say what a great job Ben Bernanke has been doing to manage the financial crisis. This was stated in contrast to a clear apprehension about Ms. Yellen. That’s an opinion, not a statement of fact.
CNN is learning what many centrist politicians do: there’s just not much of a market for corporate-friendly centrist opinions. If CNN were a straight news source it would be one thing. But it isn’t. It’s opinion journalism for voters who like Joe Lieberman and Arlen Specter.
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The best explanation of the debt ceiling anywhere
by digby
From the All In with Chris Hayes crew:
That one’s worth sharing, especially if you are having a hard time explaining all this nonsense to civilians.
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Premature ecstasy
by digby
So, I notice that Democrats are doing an ecstatic victory dance all over the intertubes about these numbers:
It does look bad. The GOP only has a 28% approval rating which is substantially lower than it was during the shutdown of 95, which everyone agrees was a disaster for them.
However, take a look at the previous low point, 31%, which came during the impeachment. Let’s remind ourselves what happened there, shall we? They brought normal governance to a halt and impeached the president for a private indiscretion against the will of the American people. They were very unpopular for doing this and suffered some losses in the congress in the 98 midterms as a result, although they did not lose their majority. Newt Gingrich resigned from congress.
And from that low point they recovered within a year and got themselves close enough to a victory in the presidential election that they were able to finesse a win with the help of the president’s brother and a conservative Supreme Court. Let’s just say their irrational behavior didn’t exactly destroy them.
And four years after that they held all three branches of government and were saying things like this:
“Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with the Republicans. Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they’ve been fixed, then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful. They don’t go around peeing on the furniture and such.”
(Yes, certain animals run around and are unpleasant, peeing on the furniture and such. Particularly ones that are rabid, like the GOP today.)
Perhaps the lesson in all this is that neither party has a monopoly on humility. But the truth is that things can change quickly in American politics, especially in this period of polarization. Best to keep your head down and fight each fight on the merits and stop being so triumphant every time it seems the other side is on the ropes. It’s very likely to come back to bite you in short shrift.
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