Saturday, September 28, 2013
I'm Sensing A Blitz
For no particular reason, I sense an angry punch coming this fall from the Obama Administration and the Senate Democrats. Maybe it's the angry mood they are projecting at the moment. The timing is important because they sense growing opposition to their agenda -- gun control, media manipulation, immigration, full ACA implementation, IRS intimidation, and perhaps most importantly, wealth redistribution. They aim to squelch opposition. Negotiation is passé. The venues for reasoned discussion will close or diminish.
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They will sure as hell try.
Today on "Celebrity Severed Heads Roadshow" Thomas From Kentucky Is Showing Our Experts What He Believes to Be The Severed Head of Harry Reid.
"While There Has Been Too Much Damage to This Head to Allow Any Positive Identification, We Have Established an 82% and 91% Probability that the Pubic Hairs Found Along the Gum Line Belonged to Nancy Pelosi and George Clooney, Respectively. I Would Say -- at the Very Least -- This is An Intriguing Severed Head."
By Barry's own admission the enactment of Obamacare seals the transformation. Which doesn't mean the vicious punk won't get in some more vicious blows. But the death blow to the America I grew up in has been delivered. With token opposition from the GOP and a mighty assist from the Supreme Court. Why the ruling class hates the country class so passionately I'll never know, but boy does it ever.
Our unprofessional party loyal hack media are just getting warmed up.
Today on "Celebrity Severed Heads Roadshow" Lisa from New Mexico Is Showing Our Experts What She Believes to Be The Severed Head of Sean Penn.
"While This May Indeed Be the Severed Head of Sean Penn, the Post-Mortem Modifications Rendering it To a Hand-Puppet Prevent Full Authentication. Still: the Hand-Puppet Modification is Finely Crafted Work, and Has Value On This Basis."
It's very difficult for the political classes to understand that a huge fraction of the electorate votes for the X Party, not because they love the X Party & its policies, but because they think that, in this election, in this one time, the candidate for the X Party was the lesser asshole compared to the candidate from Party Y.
Mandates, a concept so beloved by the political class, really only exist in their mind. It helps to live in DC to understand just how difficult is to get the political class to understand this. They simply cannot face up to the blunt empirical fact that the dogs are refusing to eat the dog food, and there is nothing they can do about it.
Today on "Celebrity Severed Heads Roadshow" Denise from Pittsburgh Is Showing Our Experts What She Believes to Be The Severed Head of Chris Matthews.
"I Am Sorry to Inform You That This Severed Head of Chris Matthews is Really an Exquisite Forgery, Made Predominately from Wood and Pork Fat. Besides, I Have Already Authenticated the Severed Head of Chris Matthews in West Virgina in Season One."
From Neil Young's "Revolution Blues":
I got the revolution blues,
I see bloody fountains,
And ten million dune buggies
comin' down the mountains.
Well, I hear that Laurel Canyon
is full of famous stars,
But I hate them worse than lepers
and I'll kill them
in their cars.
Today on a Very Special "Celebrity Severed Heads Roadshow" Edward from Spokane Is Showing Our Experts What He Believes to Be The Severed Heads of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie -- a Celebrity Severed Heads Pair!
"While These Two Severed Heads Both Bear a Striking Resemblance to the Celebrities, and Indeed Have Had the Common Severed Head Practice of Post-Mortem Teeth Removal For Purported Sexual Satisfaction, Our Experts Were Able to Confirm that Both Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie Are Still Alive and Located at Reeducation Camp Thirteen in North Dakota, Where They Labor in the Hair-Weaving Unit While Awaiting Their Trials."
Why the ruling class hates the country class so passionately I'll never know, but boy does it ever.
I have a theory (which I just thought of) that our ruling class, once in power, gets a glimpse at their peers in other nations and says we gotta be more like them.
I sense Palin is going to be the next VP.
I digress.
This is so Sullivanist and Alinskyish.....
I wish she'd run for Senate in Alaska, Titus. That would piss your hero off big time.
The tricky part is that Obama is losing popularity and the 2014 elections are looming closer and closer. Why would Senate Democrats hitch their futures to Obama at this point? There's going to be a lot of positioning for Democratic leadership after Obama and they will want to pivot that direction, which may mean repudiating some of the habits.
Whoever gets in front of the current scandals first is going to make a name for such leadership. It won't be Obama, won't be Reid, won't be Pelosi. They're entrenched and profiting. They're also blocking out up and comers. But who are the up and comers?
When Pelosi became Speaker back in 2006, she claimed she would "drain the swamp". Instead, the House under her leadership became a "federally protected wetlands".
I had hopes for improvement after the big turnover in 2010, but swamp fever seems to set in quickly on Capitol Hill.
It's very discouraging.
When Pelosi became Speaker back in 2006, she claimed she would "drain the swamp". Instead, the House under her leadership became a "federally protected wetlands".
I had hopes for improvement after the big turnover in 2010, but swamp fever seems to set in quickly on Capitol Hill.
It's very discouraging.
I think the Dems are on very thin ice. The Republicans will never be popular. They're like dentists. But, the overreaching and scandals are wearing on people and they don't trust their government anywhere near as much as they did during Obama's first term. All the crap is taking a toll. People know the Dems are mostly responsible for it and not trustworthy, but they just don't want to go to the dentist no matter how much they might need it. I think it's a big question mark about how much the voters will punish the Dems. Even if Obamacare continues to crash and burn on people, many voters will still somehow find a way to make Republicans responsible for it. Hell, a lot of the right already does, so again it's a matter of just how stupid are we: stupid or really stupid?
I agree CL. I see the MSM writing more and more propaganda to try and prop up Obamacare and Obama.
There's something else bothering me about Dems and particularly Obama. It seems that every time he makes a public statement about the national debt and defaulting, he deliberately inserts the phrase "full faith and credit" verbatim. I read it just today again.
The phrase, full faith and credit has more to do with the duty to recognize the laws and customs of individual states -- something anathema to Obama who clearly desires a superstate.
What is going on there?
AJ Lynch said...
I agree CL. I see the MSM writing more and more propaganda to try and prop up Obamacare and Obama.
He did lay the golden egg of the DC economic bubble which hasn't popped yet. One day, people there will look back as I do on San Diego ca 2005 and say, wow, that was quite a ride.
I can see journalists -- especially younger ones on both sides of the political divide -- having lots of self interest in seeing that bubble continue for as long as possible. It doesn't matter if the rest of the country is worse off for their prosperity.
I am sensing I am about to pinch a loaf by the fact that I am currently crowning.
I am sensing that fag marriage is going to be legal in New Jersey, Oregon and Hawaii....meaning 16 states and over 1/2 the U.S. population, and I am furious.
Yes, a little intriqued.
Titus, you seem obsessed with crowning achievement and the legality of same sex marriage.
actually having a bowel movement must feel like quite an achievement to someone of titus's age.
It's very difficult for the political classes to understand that a huge fraction of the electorate votes for the X Party, not because they love the X Party & its policies, but because they think that, in this election, in this one time, the candidate for the X Party was the lesser asshole compared to the candidate from Party Y.
I can believe that John McCain at times fit the plain meaning definition of "asshole" -- given his brash character and history and all. But the characterization of Romney as an "asshole" just doesn't wash with masses. And the vilification of Romney by the left by the same characters who did that to Palin will never be forgotten.
Well, senses are great things for you to have. Haley Joel Osmet had one of those in a movie he starred in a long time ago.
I have a theory (which I just thought of) that our ruling class, once in power, gets a glimpse at their peers in other nations and says we gotta be more like them.
We certainly don't want to be worse off than them. But that's just "us". I can't speak for others' expectations.
They're like dentists.
You mean, the kind that remove healthy teeth to drive up the bill? The Steve Martin kind?
The phrase, full faith and credit has more to do with the duty to recognize the laws and customs of individual states -- something anathema to Obama who clearly desires a superstate.
Oh, you mean a "superstate" like "The United States".
There's actually a more generic financial definition.
Seriously, how can a guy look down on half the country and be a contender for the job of representing the people of that country and governing that country? How can that be defended?
you mean like the "47%" that he looks down upon and spoke down to, including the elderly, military,
Pointing out that about 47% of the country doesn't pay federal taxes and that a good amount of the population is on welfare or food stamps, is merely pointing out facts. The reality is, that those people who don't have "skin in the game" are not going to vote to have themselves taxed or to vote to have themselves turned from leeches on society to responsible productive and participating members. (Not Romney's words...MINE)
Romney was pointing out these realities. And pointing out that there is a certain rather large group of people who will not vote against their own interests even if in the long run it would BE in their best interests. He wasn't disdaining or looking down on the people themselves. It was more like he was lamenting that the situation exists at all and facing the realities of the situation.
A Federal tax code in which almost half pay no tax -- not even one dollar -- is dysfunctional. I would be more for 1950s style tax rates if they extended in both directions -- up and down the income scale. People, rich or poor, in tax-free circumstances have a perverse incentive to keep voting themselves something for nothing.
@Ritmo: Seriously, how good of job does Obama do representing half of the country? He refuses to negotiate and deal with his political opposition. How can that be defended?
Now Obam has taken to specifically calling out the Tea Party as the problem. The guy is politically clueless. I'll bet Bill Clinton is laughing at him behind his back.
(Not Romney's words...MINE)
That's RIGHT.
Which is why, this:
Romney was pointing out these realities.
is an incredibly generous assessment.
You're forgetting the whole part about people supposedly seeing themselves as victims, and dependent. BIG TIME condescension and a hell of an assumption. It proves he never bothered to meet, and certainly never bothered to get to know anyone who didn't have their father pay for an elite education, Harvard, and the networks that he used to start up the businesses that were too profitable to have anything to worry about ever again by the time he was 30.
That's out of touch and disqualifying for the presidency. Not luck. Not privilege. But using those things to excuse availing oneself of a very different understanding of life that the vast majority of the country have no choice but to contend with.
Which makes him an asshole. I make it a point to never assume things of people less fortunate than me, and he should have, too. As a minimum requirement of the job.
It's what made FDR a 4-term president.
We can no longer afford, as a country, to have people as willfully out-of-touch as Romney even considered for the presidency.
Obama verbally dismissed a good portion of the country as bitter clingers. Disdaining their worries and desires as being an aberation.
"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest… it’s not surprising they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
And while Obama didn't say it directly, his campaign had said that they were "writing off the white working class"
Democratic strategists, Edsall wrote in The New York Times on Nov. 28 that “all pretense of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned.”
We already know that we don't look enough like his fantasy son Trayvon to count and that like Holder he has interest in helping "his people".
Do you think that YOU are one of Obama's people? I sure as hell don't.
How can a President and his party who write off over half of the population be able to govern fairly?
@Ritmo: Seriously, how good of job does Obama do representing half of the country? He refuses to negotiate and deal with his political opposition. How can that be defended?
The "opposition" (actually an extreme faction thereof, trying to hijack the party from Republicans) refuses to stake out responsible positions. People who threaten the country in any way, even it's financial security, simply can't and shouldn't be negotiated with. They are economic terrorists. Shouting Thomas, no Democrat he, has even admitted to me that worsening the economy as a tactic for making Obama look bad, is a legitimate position to have taken.
Obama's threatening the long-term political viability of people who care more for extremist theatrics than for responsibility, and that's a good thing. It's high time these bandits be called out and reckoned with. They've been holding the political process and the prospect of a solvent government hostage for way too long.
Ritmo: Obama's low point so far in his second term has been his petulant grand standing over Syria. A clear majority of Americans thought he was seriously looney, and diplomacy by others and other nations had to pull him away from the brink. I know that you're in the minority of people who believe that Obama can do no wrong, so I don't expect you to even consider my point.
Well, DBQ, he didn't write off the "bitter clingers", as Romney did the "47%". So on account of that, we know he doesn't think he's above everyone. Even if he thought they were misguided, he didn't imply that they were below being corrected. Romney did.
And as far as racial demographics go, The Republicans massively screwed up in predicting a Romney landslide by forgetting that the proportion of the white vote shrinks steadily every year. So at least you can say Obama's thinking about the future of this country, which Romney, obviously, isn't.
Pretending we're in the past is yet another indictment on Romney's lack of fitness for office, whichever racial group you believe you should somehow have more "sympathy" for. (Which is a way to unecessarily emotionalize a simple fact of political demographics).
The future matters.
Ritmo: as I asked the other day and was answered: where is the data showing the precipitous decline in the popularity of the Tea Party "extremists?"
I think you're "at war" with an increasing -- not a decreasing -- number of people. That's got to piss you off. Wrong side of history and all.
Ritmo: Obama's low point so far in his second term has been his petulant grand standing over Syria. A clear majority of Americans thought he was seriously looney, and diplomacy by others and other nations had to pull him away from the brink.
I don't know who these "other people" are (do you name them?), but whoever they are, I strongly disagree with them. And I can tell you exactly why I do.
I know that you're in the minority of people who believe that Obama can do no wrong, so I don't expect you to even consider my point.
At a history site I respect a lot, a good sample of academics rate Obama a "B-". Sound fair. Not sure I agree entirely, but I'd be willing to buy it.
He can/should be criticized and obviously isn't perfect, might even be screwing some things up. I just want the criticisms to make sense.
But a statement as blindly asserted and not backed up as, "a clear majority of Americans thought he was seriously looney," is just not one that I can take seriously. It's an emotional statement, filled with colorful, unobjective words (is he receiving psychiatric treatment for being "seriously looney"?, that isn't backed up anywhere.
BTW, I'm listening to Sergeant Pepper right now. For some reason I just wanted to get that off my chest.
Ritmo: as I asked the other day and was answered: where is the data showing the precipitous decline in the popularity of the Tea Party "extremists?"
I don't know that they're "in decline", but the fact that they get as much political traction in a body of government not intended to represent the broad interests of Americans at large but gerrymandered to exaggerate differences, just shows that they're the loudest and most motivated. Sure, they might be really popular, but I still know that I can't find any way in which they've ever proven to be effective.
I think you're "at war" with an increasing -- not a decreasing -- number of people. That's got to piss you off. Wrong side of history and all.
I'm not pissed off, but it can be frustrating. (Remember, I haven't completely bought your premise first). Right people have been on the "wrong side of history", anyway. But there's no war. I'm just doing my best to promote effective dialogue and a political process that doesn't use emotion to get outcomes that put us effectively in a better position than where we'd gotten to long before Obama was sworn in.
You're forgetting the whole part about people supposedly seeing themselves as victims, and dependent. BIG TIME condescension and a hell of an assumption.
Not an assumption. It is reality. I take you have never listened to Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, Reverend (chicken's coming home to roost) Wright or even read Crack's blog. Victimhood is all that they preach. The media preaches it too. Making a no good junior thug into an angelic faced saint just because they want to keep the victim train a'rollin'
It isn't JUST seeing themselves as victims....it seeing themselves as being ENTITLED. No one wants to admit dependency. They think that they are ENTITLED to whatever they can get. Owed the hard earned money of other people just because history sucked for their grandparents. (guess what...it sucked for mine too). Owed money because they just ARE. Owed phones and free goodies. And if you try to make any adjustments or cuts, the screaming doesn't end. You would think that you are attempting to cut off their fingers.
And don't think this mentality doesn't cut across color lines either. When I was in banking, once a month the white trash were lining up for "their checks". Money that they didn't earn, will never earn and got all pissy if "their checks" weren't on time. Thinking that they are entitled to take your stuff from your yard or car....because you have it and they don't.
It is real, an entire class of people playing the victim and seeing themselves as entitled. It is not an assumption. That viewpoint doesn't come from being a privileged rich white person either. I was poorer than those who were getting the free gravy train ride at the time. I just have more pride, ambition and sense of responsibility. I worked my way out of it and it was damned hard, AND I still deeply resent the entitlement mentality that thinks that because we NOW have 'stuff' that we are supposed to surrender it to the "entitled" for some politically correct reason.
Race or class.....you are not entitled to my stuff and you are not a victim unless you allow yourself to be one.
President Trayvon Beer Summit is a divider.
Not an assumption. It is reality. I take you have never listened to Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, Reverend (chicken's coming home to roost) Wright or even read Crack's blog. Victimhood is all that they preach. The media preaches it too. Making a no good junior thug into an angelic faced saint just because they want to keep the victim train a'rollin'
I surely don't listen to them enough to pretend that 47% of America does, and takes them seriously, at that. Why did Romney project whatever he thought was wrong with what those folks said onto half the country? What allows him to make such a leap of an association? I don't use their opinions to substitute for what I can find out by knowing people in that group, and I certainly don't assume that I know who they listen to and take as Gospel.
It isn't JUST seeing themselves as victims....it seeing themselves as being ENTITLED. No one wants to admit dependency. They think that they are ENTITLED to whatever they can get. Owed the hard earned money of other people just because history sucked for their grandparents. (guess what...it sucked for mine too). Owed money because they just ARE. Owed phones and free goodies. And if you try to make any adjustments or cuts, the screaming doesn't end. You would think that you are attempting to cut off their fingers.
What you are doing is substituting personal virtues for the balance of interests that every society requires. We cannot pretend that there are no externalities in life to correct, that people's interests never intersect (regardless of how fair or unfair their personal situation), and that we are all just islands. If that were the case then there would never have been a government to debate collective priorities. Each person would have been a government of one and you'd have 300 million negotiations over everything. It's inefficient enough to be too chaotic for life.
And don't think this mentality doesn't cut across color lines either. When I was in banking, once a month the white trash were lining up for "their checks". Money that they didn't earn, will never earn and got all pissy if "their checks" weren't on time. Thinking that they are entitled to take your stuff from your yard or car....because you have it and they don't.
Apparently you are focusing on race whereas for the last 2 paragraphs you wrote, I didn't. So you are reckoning with your own prejudice here, not mine. There are plenty of lazy white people. So what?
It is real, an entire class of people playing the victim and seeing themselves as entitled. It is not an assumption. That viewpoint doesn't come from being a privileged rich white person either. I was poorer than those who were getting the free gravy train ride at the time. I just have more pride, ambition and sense of responsibility. I worked my way out of it and it was damned hard, AND I still deeply resent the entitlement mentality that thinks that because we NOW have 'stuff' that we are supposed to surrender it to the "entitled" for some politically correct reason.
Well, you're certainly entitled to think that everything you have had nothing to do with any positive advantages or influences outside of you, but I think that's just post-hoc rationalizations - because they make you feel better and more justified. You have to know it's never that simple.
Race or class.....you are not entitled to my stuff and you are not a victim unless you allow yourself to be one.
Ok, so now we see how easily a hopefully objective debate devolves into fear of personal larceny. If you want to have an objective conversation, then it's going to have to be less emotional than that.
a hopefully objective debate devolves into fear of personal larceny. If you want to have an objective conversation, then it's going to have to be less emotional than that.
Being looked upon, by the government and by an entitled class of people as a cash cow is never going to be less emotional. It is really rather personal.
If you don't think that the government doesn't consider you a cash cow, I suggest you acquaint yourself with the concept of bank "bail-ins" and the proposed confiscation or appropriation of private pension plans and 401k plans that has been bandied about by OUR government and that is actually happening in other countries.
Being looked upon, by the government and by an entitled class of people as a cash cow is never going to be less emotional. It is really rather personal.
The unemotional (and unflattering) assessment was that showering people with the promise of tax cuts was just as much an entitlement, a reward, in return for your eternal political loyalty. It was an objective, Machiavellian ploy, and they didn't care if it led to default - which is not only as partisan as it gets, but just as crass, dangerous, and if you believe as I do, treasonous.
But forget all that. If your fight is with the 16th amendment, forget it. You have been told that every money you're taxed goes to people you've been convinced condescend to you, which I guess would include by greatest numbers, the military, the elderly, and the poor. I can sure as hell bet that you don't resent the military or the elderly. You might even not care so much for doing anything about waste in those categories due to how much you respect that constituency. But that's where the numbers are. That's the waste that's big enough to cause your taxes to increase. So you mismatch the reason for your tax increase with whom you'd prefer to blame for it.
And if you can't get benefits off your mind, just remember that they're a direct result of an economy made worse by making the same, lazy associations I'm warning you not to make.
Who proposed confiscating my own retirement savings and investments? Don't you realize that these things get more traction and pageviews and clicks by sounding worse and more likely than they ever really are? Sign me up for opposing that, and tell me what I need to be convinced of to see it as the same threat that you do. There are looney pols and pundits everywhere, and misinterpretations galore.
Any blitz would have to go through the House, so what they'll get won't be much.
Choom's likeability is tanking, so, ordering stuff on his own won't play, either.
Rhythm and Balls said...
Seriously, how can a guy look down on half the country and be a contender for the job of representing the people of that country and governing that country? How can that be defended?
We can only guess, but Ritmo voted for him twice and shills for him to this very day.
Too bad obfuscation is all he's got.
re: thoughts of future wealth confiscation:
“The bottom line is we’re not broke, there’s plenty of money, it’s just the government doesn’t have it,” said Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), “The government has a right, the government and the people of the United States have a right to run the programs of the United States. Health, welfare, housing – all these things.”
We're not stupid, Ritmo. We can see what's coming. On the other hand, I'm reasonably certain that the stock market itself will continue to enjoy protection, if for no other reason than teacher's and government worker pensions are heavily invested in them and the Federal Government is owed a healthy chunk of tax invested in stocks and bonds.
We can only guess, but Ritmo voted for him twice and shills for him to this very day.
I actually think I know the big reason why Ritmo supports Obama but I'm not going to say because he'll esplode.
Well, R&B your 9:39 is interesting but has nothing to do with the points that I am trying to make and your assumption of what I am thinking is amusing.
The unemotional (and unflattering) assessment was that showering people with the promise of tax cuts was just as much an entitlement, a reward, in return for your eternal political loyalty. It was an objective, Machiavellian ploy, and they didn't care if it led to default - which is not only as partisan as it gets, but just as crass, dangerous, and if you believe as I do, treasonous.
Showering me with the promise of not taking more of my money is a reward for voting for someone? Possibly. Keeping the fruits of my OWN labor is not an entitlement that should be dispensed by the government. The government or the "village" doesn't own my labor or anything else.
Reducing taxes to garner votes is dangerous if the reduction in taxes is not also accompanied by CUTS in spending. Not cuts in the INCREASE of spending but actual fiscal cuts in the amount of dollars spent. If you think that this bait and switch tactic is treasonous (and I do too), then what is your opinion of the push in the Senate to increase the Debt Ceiling? Again and again. To Infinity and Beyond!!!
Giving out money in the form of welfare and other give-aways as an inducement for votes with no care as to the effect on the fiscal health of the nation or the budget (oh yeah....we don't have a budget), is just as treasonous.
But forget all that. If your fight is with the 16th amendment, forget it. You have been told that every money you're taxed goes to people you've been convinced condescend to you, which I guess would include by greatest numbers, the military, the elderly, and the poor. I can sure as hell bet that you don't resent the military or the elderly.
I have no fight with the 16th amendment. I have a fight with the WAY that it is applied leaving half the population from any obligation to participate. I have no problem in paying a fair SHARE of taxes to support the infrastructure of keeping the wheels turning in society. Roads, as needed Police, Military and Fire protection, judicial system....you know....all the things in the original intent of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Yes. I am an originalist.
The military and the elderly as people who condescend to me????? WTF. There is no condescending. I do have issue with those who think that they are ENTITLED. The poor, of which I was one, who don't try to get out of their state and who feel that they are entitled to permanent handouts....yep. I have a big problem with this concept.
Is there a need for charity and assistance. Of course there is. Is it the function of the government to provide charity. Fuck no.
So you mismatch the reason for your tax increase with whom you'd prefer to blame for it.
Make no mistake. I don't blame the fiscal irresponsibility of the US Government on JUST welfare entitlement bloat and waste. (although it is probably the biggest sucking wound in the finances of the US Government) There is plenty of waste, graft and corruption to go around in all aspects of our political classes from City to County to State to Federal.
To get back to the original Romney issue. He at least realized that you are not going to get those 47% or whatever percentage to vote against their own personal interests of taking money from others for themselves.
If you are going to save the body, sometimes you have to cut off the gangrenous extremities.
If you think the poor want to be poor then I guess you either think poverty is an admirable state of affairs (and that people agree with that), that welfare reform never happened, or you just want people to feel you're better than so badly that you'd be willing to convince yourself of the first part - which is ludicrous.
What percentage of the budget goes to entitlements you think should be handled only by "private charity"? If it's less than the deficit, then I'd suggest your scorn for the poor is greater than your concern for responsible government.
Chickie: Try arguing the point. I'm not sure what made you think that playing psychologist (or psychological games) makes anything you're saying credible. But maybe credibility isn't so much the point as are these emotional appeals.
But the characterization of Romney as an "asshole" just doesn't wash with masses. And the vilification of Romney by the left by the same characters who did that to Palin will never be forgotten.
Don't bet on that. A friend stood in line to vote on election day last November. It was a very long line and he was there for well over two hours. Talking to people, they were all of the opinion that Romney didn't give a shit about them, but only rich people. (He also was in a poor voting precinct.) That 47% comment, and the defense of it, really pissed off a lot of poor and working class people. And the comments here just reinforce that.
Apparently, you Republicans, while telling me I need to vote for lousy shits like McConnell and Boehner, are also telling me that me and my wife are horrible people because we're not rich enough to suit the code of morality of the Republican Party, in which you're rich, or a moral failure of a human being. Good job alienating all the poor and working class people, assholes.
So fuck you Republicans, you don't want my vote, you don't want my wife's vote. Good, you won't be getting them going forward.
Seriously, there's no point in voting anymore. The Democratic Party only wants the votes of white people if they're rich or gay, and the Republicans only want your vote if you're at least in the top 75% of income earners. The good news is that it will keep me from having to bother in the future. The bad news is I'll still be eligible for jury duty, because they changed the law on that a while back.
So fuck you Republicans, you don't want my vote, you don't want my wife's vote. Good, you won't be getting them going forward.
You disappoint me Icepick. On any given election out here there are usually interesting initiatives not to mention lesser and local candidates. So I don't understand the depth of despair you've sunk to.
From Twitter:
Boehner telling Reid he can accept a one-year delay for EVERYONE or he'll have to swallow an end to the congressional exemption link
I'm pretty sure the initiatives in CA are much more interesting. It's a bigger state anyway, which means there's a lot more at stake in their initiatives.
On any given election out here there are usually interesting initiatives not to mention lesser and local candidates. So I don't understand the depth of despair you've sunk to.
I have a terrible record on state initiatives. And it is worse on local initiatives. So why bother?
As for state elections, in recent years I've been given the choice of voting for the Republican party machine candidates, such as Crist and Rubio, or voting for guys that are buying the elections, like Rick Scott, or vote for Democrats who are even worse crooks. I'm in a district slated to elect Democrats until the Trump and the Shout happen for Congressional elections. And at the local level I am completely out of step, too, as my choices are between stupid Republicans and Democrats whose primary language was learned in the Third World.
There are only three people currently in office that I have voted for. There's Dan Webster, no longer my Congressman but I got to vote for him in 2010, and I voted much more against Allan Grayson than for him. He's just another loyal Republican soldier in Congress who will support Boehner no matter what.
Then there's Pam Bondi, state Attorney General. I voted for her because a friend of mine likes the way she looks. I did it as a favor. And given that she's asking for executions to be post-poned so that she won't miss fund-raising events, I can see that my vote was cast for a much better reason than because I thought she'd do a good job.
And there's Marco Rubio, which was a against Charlie Crist and some Democrat. And Marco Rubio has managed to be on the right side of about one issue, from my perspective, and on the wrong side most of the rest of the time.
So, what's the point in voting? My choices are to vote for Republicans who will not represent my interests or concerns on the off chance they do win, or to vote for Democrats who are telling me that they're happy that I'm poor, and that they want to piss on everything I've ever believed in.
So what's the fucking point?
And regardless, El Pollo, neither party wants my vote, and both go out of their way to make that point plainly. And the same goes at the state and local level, and the state and local pols have also made it clear that they will do the opposite of what the people vote for on initiatives if they don't like the way the votes go.
So much for representative democracy.
I'm pretty sure the initiatives in CA are much more interesting. It's a bigger state anyway, which means there's a lot more at stake in their initiatives.
Yeah, no doubt. I mean, Florida is such a tiny little state.
Icepick, you are like Crack who spent the entire election season last year running down one person. He devoted his entire Althouse commenter persona to destroying one man. How do people live like that?
Florida's got half California's population, no comparable entertainment industry, no comparable technology industry and no progress on letting the people put green plant parts in their bodies if it heals them or relaxes them - which is a more subversive issue than it should be. Just nice weather in the south and alligators. And a bouncing city in the southeast. I've been there and go there a bit, but it's not the same. The comment was just a comparison, not an insult.
He devoted his entire Althouse commenter persona to destroying one man. How do people live like that?
How can you be so naive? It's the one job where one person is supposed to represent as many of us and our interests as he can. Where else to direct whatever shortcomings you believe he'd be responsible for carrying out?
And Crack did a lot more than devote his entire persona to destroying one man, anyway. What was I missing? This sounds like a bit of a skewed way of seeing Crack.
Icepick, you are like Crack who spent the entire election season last year running down one person. He devoted his entire Althouse commenter persona to destroying one man. How do people live like that?
I'm not running down one man, or even one party. I'm done with the lot of them. There seem to be a few people involved for purposes other than self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment, but they're few and far between.
How are you managing to accept that voting for the likes of Boehner and McConnell is actually going to do any damned good at all?
Also, I spent a lot of time last year commenting at a blog called The Glittering Eye, run by a guy named Dave Schuler. I went through a LOT of Romney proposals and especially his budget in the comments over there. There were better than Obama's proposals, but they were mostly fairy tales, replete with one absurd projection after another. They were very wanting, even merely as general outlines. The details were pretty much non-existent.
I also went on at length about the uselessness of Romney's campaign as a potential starting point for change. Campaigns are when political capital is built, and Romney's main message last year wasn't really change in direction for the country, but mostly that he'd do a better job of managing things. That's great, Mitt, if things are fundamentally okay, but things weren't and aren't. He was basically campaigning on status quo with a better management team in place. No where was he really pushing for a big change in the direction of the country, if you actually looked at what he was proposing, with the possible exception of his repeal and replace comments on ObamaCare. (And there were plenty of reasons to be suspicious on that front.)
My beef with Romney had to do with the proposals he was outlining, and the way in which he was running his campaign, and with the way in which the Republicans in general were and are going about their business. It had nothing to do with Mitt's choice in underwear, or which if any church he went to. Can you see a difference in my position and Crack's on that front?
I'll also note that Republicans seem to be suffering from cognitive dissonance on the tax front. Are taxes good or bad? Or something else? Because you guys can't seem to decide, other than that you think the poor and working class people aren't paying enough, and that rich people are paying too much.
And by the way, one reason so many people aren't paying much in taxes are because of tax cuts put in place under a Republican Administration. Are you now saying that Bush's tax cuts were bad because they weren't more like the Democratic caricature of those tax cuts? Or what?
And another reason more people are paying taxes is because incomes have gone down and poverty and near-poverty has gone up. Believe me, I liked my like-style fuck-all more when my wife and I were paying a lot more taxes than now (and the amount isn't zero because of heavily regressive payroll taxes, thank-you-very-much), but you guys seem to think that people like us are happy being working-class poor instead of being much farther up the income ladder, just because we're lazy and shiftless.
Really, if you want to win elections you could actually try getting people to vote for you instead of pissing on potential voters while waiting for the other guys to fuck things up so much they'll forget how much you guys fucked up when you were in charge.
Or is all of this just too much about magical underpants for you?
And Crack did a lot more than devote his entire persona to destroying one man, anyway. What was I missing? This sounds like a bit of a skewed way of seeing Crack.
Since you don't disagree that he spent time running down Romney, the better question is what else did Crack add? What was I missing?
I remember having a brief discussion with Crack where he seemed mildly incensed because I suggested that Chuck D was bigoted regarding Elvis. Then there was my defense of Helmuth von Moltke's parental religion (which he chose to smear not once but twice). Not much else is on my radar. Certainly nothing "heroic."
Chick -
Forget about Crack. Respond to Icepick.
Forget about Crack. Respond to Icepick.
OK
Really, if you want to win elections you could actually try getting people to vote for you instead of pissing on potential voters while waiting for the other guys to fuck things up so much they'll forget how much you guys fucked up when you were in charge.
Forget about 2016. It's a big distraction. 2014 will bring more real change to the system. It's just your misfortune that you seem to stuck in a district where your congressional rep can't do anything you believe in. I pity you, I really do.
I'm stuck in Oceanside too for a variety of reasons. But I can vote for and support for people who seem to make a difference. And I can pass that lesson on to my kids. I reject out of hand your abject political hopelessness.
As for pissing off potential voters, how do you think I feel when I see just another Boxer or Feinstein win every time despite their offensive campaigns and beliefs?
From a story up at Drudge:
'Your hate for this president is coming before your love of this country,' said Rep. David Scott, D-Ga. 'Because if you love this country you would not be closing it down.'
My response is to point out that Obama flirts with autocracy and he knows it (and constantly shows it). Congress flirts with mob rule and they know it. Neither side is willing to see the downside of each other.
My hope for 2014 and beyond is that Congress strengthens its resolve and weakens the Presidency which has incrementally become too powerful.
I am not a 2008 or 2012 campaign reenactor and look to the future.
If the majority chooses autocracy in the future, I will obviously have to accept it -- but I don't need to support it wholeheartedly.
Christ, Chickie. Don't you realize by now that I live on the other side of the country from you? Why do you so often complain to me about your own state's U.S. senators? You're the one living in California, not me (although I would in a heartbeat). Can't you make specific your generic complaints about their "offensiveness" (whatever that means) and direct those gripes toward the people who vote for them, amongst whom you live, and share your livelihood?
As for pissing off potential voters, how do you think I feel when I see just another Boxer or Feinstein win every time despite their offensive campaigns and beliefs.
They're in safe "districts", so it doesn't matter. From your comments, so is your Congresshumanoid. So your hope for 2014 is what, again?
The next two comments form something of a whole:
1. My response is to point out that Obama flirts with autocracy and he knows it (and constantly shows it). Congress flirts with mob rule and they know it. Neither side is willing to see the downside of each other.
2. My hope for 2014 and beyond is that Congress strengthens its resolve and weakens the Presidency which has incrementally become too powerful.
So this means you're voting in favor of anarchy over autocracy, by your own comments. And yet you claim you reject my abject political hopelessness. I'm not seeing the upside in your position.
I am not a 2008 or 2012 campaign reenactor and look to the future.
Failure to analyze how things went wrong seems like a rejection of learning how to do things better in the future. Good luck with the Mitt Romney II or John McCain II campaigns in 2016.
If the majority chooses autocracy in the future, I will obviously have to accept it -- but I don't need to support it wholeheartedly.
Yeah, and I don't need to support either anarchy or autocracy. And henceforth I won't.
@Ritmo: More and more I'm seeing being here and responding to your requests as a volunteer effort. I have more important people and causes to help.
I really have nothing left to say to you, Icepick.
Good Luck!
And I can pass that lesson on to my kids.
Hopefully you'll encourage them to think for themselves. So often I can never find any substance to what you complain about of politics... it's always tropes, gripes, insults, or hopes for vengeance never addressing policy. The words are actually related, you know? Politics... policy. Here's another example:
My hope for 2014 and beyond is that Congress strengthens its resolve and weakens the Presidency which has incrementally become too powerful.
How? Be specific. Legislation? No one's brought this up, and why would they? The "unitary executive" was the crowning contribution of "The Decider". Talk about loving executive power. Unless you fell in line on Iraq, you were a traitor. Buy into the scares and the lies (where's the WMD?) or you're abetting terrorists. Whence his entire presidency slowly unravelled.
See, I can talk poetically and propagandistically, too. But there was actual substance in that. And it was about the emptiest moment of his whole presidency, the one that he staked it all on.
Not that I think what we did was bad. But there was Exhibit A of believing your own BS and not accounting for the House of Cards it was built upon. Has Bush ever taken responsibility for failure of his war rationale? What kind of inoffensive, moral example is that to make?
A weaker presidency would be a great way to retroactively rationalize Bush's inability, disinterestedness or otherwise failure to prevent in 2008 what he should have spent two administrations doing. I don't care all that much about his war (as unpopular as it made him). I care about taking our economic position in 2001 into where it stood in 2008. And where nearly every other Republican is still intent on keeping it until election day. But that's just me.
More and more I'm seeing being here and responding to your requests as a volunteer effort. I have more important people and causes to help.
No, you just want to take advantage of the American privilege to make diffuse, bitchy complaints without taking responsibility for deciding on a concrete and realistic answer or solution to them.
More and more I'm seeing being here and responding to your requests as a volunteer effort. I have more important people and causes to help.
I'll note that neither Ritmo nor phx have ever responded to my requests for examples of their being opposed to anything Obama has ever done, or to anything the Democrats in Congress have ever done. They are in 100% agreement with both groups, apparently. Which is interesting, because the two sets are often opposed to each other. (See Obama's budgets, for example, and their total rejection by Congressional Democrats.) But somehow phx and Ritmo ALWAYS toe the party line for each.
As bad as the Republicans are, one can almost always get a Republican voter to list several things they think their own representatives and party have gotten wrong.
Icepick, it's usually impossible to criticize an Obama action without knowing what the other side's up to. They put the guy in a box and criticize every action. He puts tax cuts they say they favor into the stimulus and they complain. He endorses the health care mandate they came up with and they complain. They lay off the same workforce that brought us through every Republican recession and recovery. They are against everything he does, they hate him, they hate his existence and the fact that he can rally enough people to believe in something more than their cynicism and laziness, and then ask incredulously of all the rest of us, "Why do you refuse to hate him the way we do?"
Well, the answer's simple: We never had their political priorities, which is all they care about as we can now obviously see.
The Republican answer to responsible budgeting was cutting Big Bird from NPR and counting more upper-level tax cuts as deficit-cutting measures!? How on earth does that even merit a sane response. Obama reaches out to them and they slap his hand so you can't pretend that they've got anything worth responding to. Criticize the reaction to that all you want - when someone's on a team that lives for sabotaging the captain, I sure hope your criticism of the captain is more useful than I can find it to be. I prefer to criticize those doing the sabotaging.
I'll give an example of Democratic dissonance. Obama has voted against raising the debt limit as a Senator, and thought that increasing the debt was a bad thing. Now, as President, he holds the exact opposite opinion.
So, is raising the debt limit a failure of leadership, per Obama in 2006, or is FAILING to raise the debt limit a failure of leadership, per Obama 2013. I've asked this particular question of various Obama partisans in the past, and they NEVER answer me. I don't expect phx or Ritmo to answer me now.
Icepick, it's usually impossible to criticize an Obama action without knowing what the other side's up to.
And this means I can stop reading the rest.
We'll see if Ritmo does any better with Obama calling what he's doing a failure of leadership, and of calling doing the exact opposite in the past a failure of leadership. The debt ceiling debate, and Obama's words on the matter, provide a rare true dichotomy of choices in politics.
Until Icepick names something more substantive than not coming up with a budget in the midst of people who can't tell the mathematical similarity between a revenue cut and an expenditure, I'll just say that it makes me wonder if the extreme-left wasn't right about Obama, and he just isn't bold, progressive and iconoclastic enough. I keep thinking maybe his outreach to the congressional backbiters would yield positive results, that it ensures stability, eventual compromise and goodwill, but perhaps that's really where he has gone wrong.
Instead, maybe he should spend all his time in front of problem areas of red state congressional districts, and ask why that district's rep opposes fixing them up. He should stand in front of overburdened clinics, and ask why the rep hates making healthcare available. He should stand in front of crumbling red-state bridges, and ask why the rep hates highway spending. He should advertise what those reps have voted to spend on, instead - holding up a tallying sheet, and showing where it went to, and how many other constituents could have benefited from alternate proposals.
I think that's what he should do. But maybe he's just too nice for that. So there's a criticism.
And this means I can stop reading the rest.
No it doesn't. It means Chickie's right about you not understanding the concept of the "least worse alternative".
He should put the cameras on him in front of small farm operations and soup kitchens and ask why the red state rep wants to give big-ag subsidies and cut nutrition assistance.
See. He failed to do enough of that.
The debt ceiling debate, and Obama's words on the matter, provide a rare true dichotomy of choices in politics.
What about it? Not only is Obama right that Republicans are risking the credit rating of the U.S. (it already went down the last time they pulled that shit), but their standing in the public always suffers when they do. The shutdowns cost more money than they save. If you didn't know this, and you didn't know how badly everyone abroad thinks of a country that does that, what more is there to say? That you didn't know that playing with the debt ceiling in the first place is an extreme right-wing tactic that even their leadership opposes? It's a right-wing policy that RIGHT-WINGERS are sucking up valuable policy debate time and priorities on! AND Obama's inability to do anything constructive about their WILLFUL SABOTAGE other than publicize it is Obama's fault?
Incredible. It's like you're blaming the good kid for being placed in a classroom full of delinquents.
Ritmo, Obama was saying, just a few years ago, that doing what he is doing NOW was wrong in every way imaginable. Was he a delinquent then? If so, why insist that he be made President?
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