Monday, September 30, 2013

“I don’t think (Obama) wants to compromise”

"[S]aid Victor Davis Hanson of the conservative Hoover Institution. “In the past, he’s always done better when he can accuse somebody of some terrible thing and go campaign against them. I think he wants to say that Obamacare is working ... He’ll want this war to continue.”

Democratic strategist Jason Stanford said the latest offer is a sign of GOP weakness, “tacit-ly admitting that they’re not getting what they were going for.”

“The president has said he is not negotiating on this and the House continues to try to negotiate on this,” Stanford said. “I think the government’s going to get shut down and Republicans will initially say, ‘See, this is no big deal.’ The stock market will have another opinion. This will hurt the economy and people will feel it in their 401(k)s.”

The Boston Globe, Bloomberg video, via Intapundit


63 comments:

Calypso Facto said...

"The president has said he is not negotiating on this"

But, yeah, it's the Republicans fault or something.

rhhardin said...

The economy is weak. It needs more bleeding.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

At this exact instant, somewhere, somebody just dropped dead from something or other.

Michael Haz said...

What we won't see: The President, his wife and their kids happily filling out paperwork for their ObamaCare coverage. Followed by a brief speech in which he says

"Listen, you've been lied to by the Republicans. ObamaCare is fine. My wife and I and our kids just enrolled. And later today there'll be a ceremony on the Senate floor where all the members of my party will also enroll. If it's good enough for us, it's good for you."

Shouting Thomas said...

Oh, well, another crisis! Just like the last crisis!

At this exact instant, somewhere, somebody just dropped dead from something or other.

We gotta do something about that!

betamax3001 said...

Naked Clown Tutor Robot says:

Little One, Clowns Do Not Compromise. Floppy Red Shoes Will Be Stamped, Gentle Shoulder Rubs Will Be Demanded. If the Clown Says the Pants Stay Off, Well Then: the Pants Stay Off.

betamax3001 said...

Naked Clown Tutor Robot says:

Little One, One Day All of America Will Stand Without Pants and the Day of the Clown Will Have Truly Arrived.

betamax3001 said...

Naked Clown Tutor Robot says:

Rub My Feet, Little One, As I Tell You More.

betamax3001 said...

Naked Clown Tutor Robot says:

Little One, Who Needs a Squirting Flower on Their Lapel When You Can Wear a Clown-Colored Lab Coat and Carry a Big Red Rectal Thermometer?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

As see on insty:

democratic leader's explosive words

"Not all that long ago, a presidential spokesman using this language would be talking about murderers who hijacked airplanes or drove explosive-laden trucks into the barracks of U.S. Marines—not political opponents with differing notions about federal spending.

With suicide bombs going off daily around the world and funerals for the Washington Navy Yard victims still taking place, one might expect a modicum of rhetorical restraint from inside the White House. No such luck. For five years now, such metaphors have been the cudgel of choice for administration officials, along with their fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill and journalistic fellow travelers.

It all starts with President Obama, who routinely accuses Republicans trying to thwart his spending plans by putting “party ahead of country.” Last January, when talking—as Dan Pfeiffer was this week—about GOP insistence on trading spending cuts for agreeing to raise the nation’s debt limit—the president said he wouldn’t negotiate with those holding “a gun at the head of the American people.”

Joe Biden asserts Republicans are holding the country “hostage” with their spending stance, and in a 2011 meeting with congressional Democrats the vice president agreed with the suggestion that Tea Party groups were “terrorists.”

Among Democrats on Capitol Hill, it starts at the top, too."

For democrats, it's all about vilification, propaganda, and political maneuvering - NOT what is best for the nation.

betamax3001 said...

Naked Enforcement Clown Robot Says:

Citizen, You Are Willfully Wearing Pants in Direct Denial of the New American Pants Protection Act: Take You Place in Line for the Suppository Reeducation Procedure. You Do Realize the Cost of this Procedure is Not Covered By Government Insurance.

betamax3001 said...

Naked Enforcement Clown Robot Says:

We Cannot Let the Tyranny of Those Wearing Pants Oppress the Benevolent Needs of the Government. It is For Your Own Good. And the Children. Remember: Children Who Grow Up in a Pantsless Society Will Better Understand Tolerance and Acceptance.

betamax3001 said...

Naked Enforcement Clown Robot Says:

Citizen, No Where In The Constitution Is There An Expressed Right to Wear Pants. Thus, the Wearing of Pants is a Privilege That the Government Can Give of Its Own Discretion.

Congressmen, Friends and Donors May Wear Pants.

Criminals and Taxpayers May Not Wear Pants. Note that these Two Groups Have Considerable Overlap.

edutcher said...

Shout is absolutely right on this, another manufactured crisis like Syria.

It's going to be interesting to see if the public sees through this the way they saw through Syria and "Trayvon".

PS Have to disagree with VDH on Choom doing better when he can accuse somebody of some terrible thing and go campaign against them.

Given his ego and background, it's all he ever wants to do.

And the last few rounds it's blown up in his face.

KCFleming said...

"It's not my fault!!!"

Pick one:
Obama
* A narcissist
* A sociopath
* A 3 year old
* All of the above

Hagar said...

Charles Krauthammer is right; you cannot govern the country from the House of Representatives alone. However, neither can you govern the country without it, and that is what is going on here.

I think this thing is bigger than even "Obamacare," and the House should stand its ground. It is not the House that is being "unreasonable," when the polls show 2/3 of the people opposed to "Obamacare," and half of those adamantly opposed. The House is on good ground here.

The "Founders" set up the system for good reasons, and I think the behavior of the Obama administration shows very well why they wrote the Constitution the way they did. This kind of thing was very much what they wanted to prevent.

Matt Sablan said...

It has been this way the entire time. I don't know how many people I've stopped talking politics with because they ignore the most basic reality in Washington (Democrats refusing to even talk with Republicans.)

Matt Sablan said...

Either or, maybe he can hard pivot to the economy to focus like a laser on jobs again.

I'm Full of Soup said...

I like how Dems say we can't shut down the economy or we can't shut down the country as if the fed govt is all that. I say let it burn.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

also via insty..

The Associated Press Goes to Bat For the Democratic Party

bagoh20 said...

Reform and salvation will require people willing to sacrifice, to lose reelections, to lose power, to lose it all. The thing to remember is that this is going to happen anyway, so make it worthwhile. You can die fighting or cower in your foxhole.

Methadras said...

Well, the GOP isn't Iran, so compromising with them is just right out.

ricpic said...

The thing to never forget is that the MANDATE is totally unconstitutional. Justice Roberts can call it a tax all day long. It's not. It's a mandate. It is the federal government FORCING the citizen to buy something, in this case health coverage. With that assault on liberty there can be no compromise.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

I guess what I don't understand is why Obama and the Democrats are expected to compromise on this. Romney ran on a platform of repealing Obamacare on day one, and lost. The American people rejected that plan.

AllenS said...

Really, ARM? Have you noticed what the public opinion of Obamacare is? People didn't vote for Romney for a variety of reasons, but to suggest that it was all about Obamacare is just a bit too much. Even from you.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

But if this was their overriding concern they had an option to opt out. Clearly it is not at the top of the average person's concerns.

Hagar said...

I have been wondering for some time why we hear so little of any leading Democrat U.S. senators any more. It is just Harry Reid all the time with sometimes a little backup from Chuck Shumer and/or Dick Durbin, but nary a peep from any of the others like Leahy, Levin, Rockefeller, etc.,and so on, who used to be all over the the TV news channels.

Could it be that they are reluctant to be associated with this administration in the public's mind?

Hagar said...

I do think Harry Reid is going to be their fall guy when this thing collapses.

I'm Full of Soup said...

I'd like to see a poll asking who was the better president and the two choices are GW Bush or Obama. And I am not saying Bush was an adequate nor a good president.

Matt Sablan said...

"But if this was their overriding concern they had an option to opt out."

-- And they took it by leaving the House in Republican control.

Leland said...

I guess what I don't understand is why Republicans are expected to compromise on this. Democrats ran on a platform of creating Obamacare, and lost the House in 2010 for it. The American people rejected Democrats, and continue to give the majority of the most democratic body in the US government to the GOP.

Gee, that was easy and equally pointless. Romney lost because he couldn't GOTV. Obama did not win because he ran on his record of enacting Obamacare, because he neither enacted it at all (other than imposing some taxes early) nor barely mentioned having the legislation passed. That's probably because the American people rejected the Democrat party in 2010 and 2012 at both the federal and state levels.

Further, Democrat politicians seem uninterested if a government shutdown occurs. Obama played his 35th round of golf this year (a personal record) on Saturday. The Senate stayed home Sunday. Why do they act this way? Because they rather have a shutdown.

And props to Hagar, great comment!

Leland said...

"But if this was their overriding concern they had an option to opt out."

And turning many state legislatures and governors into Republicans, so that individual states could opt out.

Matt Sablan said...

Honestly, I don't know if Obama won the election, or if Romney lost it. Frankly, with the voter suppression the IRS engaged in, it's hard to really tell how a fair and open 2012 would have gone. Too late to fix, but worth noting that Obama won with the federal government's tax enforcement finger on the scale.

That, too, will come back to bite them.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

House Democrats won a plurality nation-wide by over 1.4 million votes (1.4%). This is hardly some searing indictment of Obamacare.

chickelit said...

House Democrats won a plurality nation-wide by over 1.4 million votes (1.4%). This is hardly some searing indictment of Obamacare.

I recall that Obama referred to the 2010 midterms as a "shellacking." Can you handle the unvarnished truth?

I think that the real issue is jobs and people's perception that Obamacare inhibits private and small business recovery. Public sector job creation in DC just isn't winning the day, ARM.

Matt Sablan said...

"House Democrats won a plurality nation-wide by over 1.4 million votes (1.4%). This is hardly some searing indictment of Obamacare."

-- Running up the score in cities doesn't matter. We're a republic, deal with it.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Shellac is a lot more fragile than varnish, much like the Repubs 'win' in the house.

I'm not a huge fan of Obamacare myself. The house Democrats are quite dysfunctional. They should have had an up or down vote on single payer system. But, reform was needed and only one side seems even slightly interested in trying to fix the health care mess.

chickelit said...

ut, reform was needed and only one side seems even slightly interested in trying to fix the health care mess.

I also recall that Romney proposed HCR be handled state-by-state and not via Federal fiat. That was actually the Republican compromise and probably still is.

chickelit said...

Obama's biggest downfall (and this will go down in history books) is that he believes too strongly in a Federal solution for everything.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Matthew Sablan said...
-- Running up the score in cities doesn't matter.


Last time I checked the technical term for this was gerrymander. You are thinking of football, where there is an even playing field.

Matt Sablan said...

"But, reform was needed and only one side seems even slightly interested in trying to fix the health care mess."

-- Republicans proposed at least three distinct plans during the ACA passage debacle. At least two of them were bi-partisan.

I'm Full of Soup said...

CL:

As you know, the feds have a printing press and pring money like it is going out of style but states and cities can't do that.

That is why innumerates like Obama and libs favor federal solutions which tend to loot the nation's wealth.

Leland said...

Obama's biggest downfall (and this will go down in history books) is that he believes too strongly in a Federal solution for everything.

Mussolini did too.

Leland said...

Last time I checked the technical term for this was gerrymander.

So you are claiming state borders are set by gerrymandering?

Chip has your number.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Leland said...
So you are claiming state borders are set by gerrymandering?


Who said anything about state borders?

From simulations of the last electoral vote:

"In North Carolina, where the two-party House vote was 51 percent Democratic, 49 percent Republican, the average simulated delegation was seven Democrats and six Republicans. The actual outcome? Four Democrats, nine Republicans — a split that occurred in less than 1 percent of simulations. If districts were drawn fairly, this lopsided discrepancy would hardly ever occur."

chickelit said...

Hmmm, ARM posits that gerrymandering only serves Republicans.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

El Pollo Raylan said...
Hmmm, ARM posits that gerrymandering only serves Republicans.


"Democrats received 1.4 million more votes for the House of Representatives, yet Republicans won control of the House by a 234 to 201 margin. This is only the second such reversal since World War II."

Obviously I don't think the Dems are blameless. It would be good for democracy, however, if all redistricting was placed in the hands of independent commissions using objective criteria for setting boundaries.

"In, California where voters took redistricting out of legislators’ hands by creating the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, 62 percent of the two-party vote went to Democrats and the average mock delegation of 38 Democrats and 15 Republicans exactly matched the newly elected delegation."

Hagar said...

After the 2000 census re-districting, the Democrats in California crowed that they had effectively removed the Republican party as a force in California politics.

Today, the State of California is almost as broke as the City of Detroit, and there is a really live movement for seceding and forming a 51st state, excluding the L.A. and San Francisco basins.

chickelit said...

This is only the second such reversal since World War II

So you admit that such reversals can occur, eh? A time traveller from that era might just concede that we live in similar times, where people cross party lines. Both parties seem unable to propose a sustainable economy.

Leland said...

Who said anything about state borders?


That's probably because the American people rejected the Democrat party in 2010 and 2012 at both the federal and state levels.

If not for the 17th Amendment, the Senate would be Republican controlled as well. So gerrymandering has nothing to do with anything anyone else is discussing. Why did you bring it up?

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Leland said...
Why did you bring it up?


Because, as I said at the outset, the American people had an opportunity to explicitly reject Obamacare by electing Romney and they passed on that opportunity. To argue that the House has a mandate to block Obamacare it is necessary to first establish that they have a mandate for anything, which is, at best, debatable.

chickelit said...

Because, as I said at the outset, the American people had an opportunity to explicitly reject Obamacare by electing Romney and they passed on that opportunity.

You are 2012 reenactor, ARM. Even if people did overwhelmingly support Obamacare then, the question is where is the support trending now.

chickelit said...

Members of Congress are pretty savvy about their own survival, ARM--you have to give them that. Try as you might, you cannot make them ignore 2014.

I'm Full of Soup said...

So it sounds like all or most of that 1.4 million came from California if the back of my envelope is correct and that does not help your case.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

AJ Lynch said...
So it sounds like all or most of that 1.4 million came from California if the back of my envelope is correct and that does not help your case.


I would go back to that envelope. Assuming we agree on the original premise that everyone's vote should count equally.

chickelit said...

Shouldn't you be cheering the House vote to push back the individual mandate another year, ARM? House Dems voted for it in droves and it means fewer disgruntled voters in 2014.

chickelit said...

I think it was a masturful stroke by the House Dems.

edutcher said...

AnUnreasonableTroll said...

Because, as I said at the outset, the American people had an opportunity to explicitly reject Obamacare by electing Romney and they passed on that opportunity.

No, they passed on it.

That's why the Choom Gang had to crank up the vote fraud machine.

If you believe the polls, only 40% support ChomCare. With 10 point skews, that's probably quite high.

Hagar said...

"To argue that the House has a mandate to block Obamacare it is necessary to first establish that they have a mandate for anything, which is, at best, debatable."

A very odd conception of the House of Representatives' function under the United States' Constitution.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Let's give Peter King a say:

“This is going nowhere,” he says about the standoff with Senate Democrats. “If Obamacare is as bad as we say it’s going to be, then we should pick up a lot of seats in the next election and we should win the presidency in 2016,” he says. “This idea of going through the side door to take something you lost through the front door — to me, it’s wrong.”

Can't argue with that, given that I said the same thing the other day.

JAL said...

I don't have to read anything more than Calypso's comment, #1.

What is all this crap about the Republicans not being willing to negotiate??

Obama hands out "home free" favors on Obamacare to his buddies like a mobster, while leaving in place taxes on pacemakers and hearing aids and holding a gun to the heads of average citizens and small businesses.

Seen flow chart?

This will not end well.

Matt Sablan said...

Just a reminder on the compromises offered by Republicans:

1. Starting position: Defund ACA.

2. Fine, we'll just delay it.

3. Ok, whatever. If you still won't talk, let's at least say that Congress is subject to the ACA.

4. What? You won't even give us THAT? Fine, then let's at least not raise prices on hearing aids and pacemakers.

5. Seriously, you want poor people to pay MORE for medical devices? Ok, uh, can we have a week to come up with new terms?

6. Really -- you won't even do that? I give up. Fine. You win: Shut it down.

Leland said...

Obama hands out "home free" favors on Obamacare to his buddies like a mobster, while leaving in place taxes on pacemakers and hearing aids and holding a gun to the heads of average citizens and small businesses.

Indeed. And Reid rather shutdown the government than require Congressional staffers to use Obamacare.

To Reid, ACA is good enough for the poor and middle class, but not sufficient for the political class.