American Politics Thread 2013: I'm a cool Rodham grandma in the USA

I don't remember, does Quinnipiac tend left or right?

left, but not strongly

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/11/10/us/politics/fivethirtyeight-1110-accuracy2012-1/fivethirtyeight-1110-accuracy2012-1-blog480.png

hi iatee!

hi alfred

I guess the Post has lost the front-page crown

http://retired.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/new-york-daily-news-house-of-turds-cover-boehner.jpg

haha wow

you work at the daily news now

HA

just on Tuesdays

God, I just noticed the dripping hands

yeah that is pretty nasty

guess shoulda been nsfw

blood would've been a better choice but doesnt fit theme

its blood in the original image so they had to switch it up anyway

Oh man please please do this: http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb/democrats-mull-divulging-emails-with-boehner-staff-as-shutdown-fight-gets-personal/

Senate Democrats are considering leaking a series of emails between the chiefs of staff of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker John A. Boehner regarding employer contributions to congressional staff health care plans, multiple top-level sources said late Monday.

Senate Democratic chiefs of staff discussed the emails between Reid chief David Krone and Boehner chief Mike Sommers at a recent meeting, according to a source with direct knowledge of the meeting.

Leaking the emails would be unusual, given the taboo over disclosing personal communications between top staffers. But the missives also would reveal Boehner’s position on employer subsidies for congressional staff. Democrats believe the Ohio Republican’s decision to attach an amendment to revoke those contributions to the most recent House continuing resolution was a direct shot at vulnerable Senate Democrats up in 2014.

Senate Democrats believe that Republican efforts to force a vote on what some in the GOP have characterized as a congressional “exemption” are designed to politically corner Democrats like Kay Hagan of North Carolina or Mark Pryor in Arkansas, who represent more conservative states. Democrats contend that Republicans just want to campaign on the issue, while hoping the amendment will not pass.

They did

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) worked with top congressional Democrats behind the scenes to preserve employer contributions for congressional staff's health care plans even as he decried those subsidies in public, Politico reported Tuesday.

Emails and documents obtained by Politico show Boehner and his aides worked with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD), among others, to find a way to maintain the long-standing employer contributions. Those documents also show that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was aware of the behind-the-scenes talks.

politics ain't beanbag

Its not quite Vitters level trolling but I like it

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2878/10032989935_133ddf04f6_b.jpg

Reagan would have approved!

they're gonna shut down Chris Matthews i hope

HA!

Rob Dreher:

That’s it, I think. When I think of the Republican Party, I don’t think of principled conservative legislators who are men and women of vision strategy. I think of ideologues who are prepared to wreck things to get their way. They have confused prudence — the queen of virtues, and the cardinal virtue of conservative politics — with weakness. I know I’m very much a minority among conservatives in this, but the behavior of Congressional Republicans pushed me out of the party two years ago, even though I almost always vote Republican, or withhold my vote. I am not a liberal, and do not want to vote for liberals, especially on social policy. But I told a Louisiana conservative friend the other day that the Congressional Republicans are making me consider the previously unthinkable: throwing my vote away by voting for a Democrat in the special election next month to replace my GOP congressman, who just resigned to take another job. The GOP candidates in this local race are hot and heavy to overthrow Obamacare. I think about how poor this district is — 26 percent of the district lives in poverty, making it one of the poorest Congressional districts in America — and how badly we need jobs and economic growth, and I think: What kind of world do these people live in?

I liked this, too:

They are a barking-mad pack of ideologues, is what they are. I haven’t written much about the Obamacare thing because I don’t follow policy closely. As far as I know, Obamacare is a bad idea. But here’s the thing: it’s the law. It was passed, signed by the president, and upheld in the Supreme Court. There is no way the House Republicans, or Ted Cruz or Rand Paul, is going to overturn it. The best they can do is to delay it. And then what? Guess what: the 2012 elections were their last, best chance to overturn Obamacare, and the country didn’t go for it.

This is not the first time they have done this. This is, what, the third or fourth time they have used the debt ceiling or budget to fuck things up? It didn't hurt them noticeably before and I don't know if it will hurt them now. Won't be surprised if the American people after a week of this blame the proverbial Both Sides.

It could happen, but there could be a noticeable change at the margins. With the country so divided, the margins are not inconsequential.

polling suggests americans by a wide margin blame the republicans for the shutdown and general obstructiveness

important

http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/82020215.html

residue of americans praise the republicans for the shutdown and general obstructiveness xp

Michelle Malkin ✔ @michellemalkin
I'm singing Bye Bye Bye to my health plan, while @NSYNC pimps Obamacare ==> https://twitter.com/NSYNC/status/384768026928623616 …

love how these poll respondents seem to be regarded by y'all as careful deliberative policy wonks; they won't remember their opinion 6 months from now, because they are TRYING TO EAT.

The Dems share the blame; they are the GOP's enablers. The Constitution may not be a suicide pact, but the duopoly now is.

Pretty sure this one is entirely the Repubs fault

Pretty much anyone with a brain can see that

The Dems share the blame; they are the GOP's enablers.

this is as addled as Mark Halperin-Chris Matthews types pining for Tip 'n' Ronnie bipartisanship. Surrendering on the sequester and actually treating the Ryan plan seriously in '10 were gruesome things, but contempt for constitutional norms re legislation is the GOP's fault alone, Morbs.

(and because you want to be a contrarian you'll probably go "HO HO constitutional norms – what about the NSA and Snowden" as if you were unable separate one from the other)

morbs it's ok to forget about the near enemy for 36 hours, nobody doubts you

what shutdown. FOX told me it's just a "slimdown", nbd.

fuck "addled." be a fucking populist party with guts and you'd have your contempt-for-norms-proof majority.

maybe being "Corner lovers" is the addling thing

i understood the word fucking but nothing else

how long till the house votes to impeach obama (for whatever)?

Idiocracy coverage of an Idiocracy story

http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/524ab3df6bb3f7295152dcff-630-/new-york-daily-news-house-of-turds-cover-boehner.jpg

I think this kinda is their de facto impeachment.

note his shit-stained hands

i think they're gonna go beyond de facto and go for it for real. i could see them nailing him on the 14th amendment, even if they're the ones who provoke a default

if Dems had the will to push for fair-election laws to bar joke-gerrymandering when they had a chance, no hostage-taking now. (see Nichols' finish)

http://www.thenation.com/blog/176428/america-gets-primaried

we did Shitboehner this morning

have not made my way through this yet but yuval levin pens one of the funniest opening paragraphs i've seen today:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/360092/ongoing-health-care-debate-yuval-levin

A small group of House Republicans, but one sufficiently large to deny the party a voting majority in the House, believed that the budget brinksmanship of the past few weeks would allow them to keep the government open but prevent Obamacare’s exchanges from starting up. Now that the opposite has happened, it would be worth their time to reconsider their options.

oh, word?

anyone catch the ny daily news cover today? haven't seen it posted anywhere, so here it is

http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/524ab3df6bb3f7295152dcff-630-/new-york-daily-news-house-of-turds-cover-boehner.jpg

so this is a picture (tweeted by cantor) of the republicans, ready to negotiate.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BVgP3jPCUAEyWf_.jpg

but the democrats won't even join them at the table! why do they hate this country so much?! they're probably too busy forcing underage women to have sex and then to have abortions and then telling people to keep on the trails in national parks!

oh wait the natl parks are closed

Shutdown pickup lines, as gathered by NPR

http://i.imgur.com/ikrF5lq.png

Ted Cruz, looking perplexed about how his brilliant plan didn't work

http://www.trbimg.com/img-524b65fd/turbine/la-hp-cruz-photospot-20131001/600