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

seems weird that they even had to block off the WW2 memorial -- iirc it's pretty much just an open-air thing.

the general fecklessness and panic of the republicans atm makes me have a glimmer of hope that the bargain won't be so bad. Fox News is silly even by their standards right now.

but obv doesn't have legs

why do you hate veterans

at this point i think it's obvious these republicans dgaf what most americans think, this WWII thing is prob just to give affirmation to their supporters. they've been able to bring our government to its knees with just the support of a small base of radicals and true believers, so what do they need with the rest of us. they're basically just free to do whatever the fuck they want now unless people get their shit together to actively stop them.

it's nice to think these people will lose in the long run, but uhhh ... how's that gonna happen?

that shut-down-the-military-too article was otm

seriously, shut it all down -- air traffic controllers, customs, nsa, medicare, everything

how else will we get past 'i'm from the government and i'm here to help'?

of course if a "deal" means chained CPI and "entitlement reform" we might as well stay closed until China buys us on eBay.

how's that gonna happen?

Boehner gets the boot and is replaced by someone the non-tea-party reps can back.

guys the military academy football games will not be canceled, we can all breathe easy

Boehner gets the boot and is replaced by someone the non-tea-party reps can back.

what about the massive amounts of money, finely tailored districts, and legions of followers who support these people? the system of laws that keeps it in place? i guess these authoritarian yahoos will naturally come to their senses and the billionaires supporting them and our laws that let them do so will just ... i don't know, cease to exist somehow. i guess it's pretty easy.

i don't know, this shit's pretty messed up, but that's old news. this gov't shutdown is just a natural consequence of all this fucked up stuff we've been witnessing the past few years and belongs to a bigger scheme of things.

The non tea party reps alreadt back boehner, thats not the problem

Do the Tea Party types get Koch et al money as well, or do those types mostly give money to mainstream Republicans?

Hey, wow, a first person account of the ramifications of all this bullshit, from me! If the shutdown goes on for more than a week, apparently it could delay closing on our new house in a couple of months, since the IRS will not have had adequate time to pull tax records and whatnot. Fun! Maybe we'll be homeless for a while.

aw man

sorry Josh. :(

sux

http://gawker.com/gop-congressman-makes-park-ranger-apologize-for-shutdow-1440577868

I am so sick of these fucking racist assholes

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) took heat from his Republican colleagues Wednesday in a closed-door meeting to discuss the government shutdown, Politico reported.

At the meeting that was hosted by the Senate’s conservative Steering Committee, one GOP senator after another pressed Cruz to offer a proposal to end the shutdown, according to Politico. The junior senator from Texas reportedly had no solution nor could he explain how he would defund the Affordable Care Act – an effort led by Cruz and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) that served as the impetus for the current shutdown.

jeezus

of course, it doesn't. u.s. senators at least have to pretend to be halfway sane every 6 years so they can get a majority of votes across the state. u.s. reps can just fart and as long as the have financial backing and say they're on the correct team, they'll be fine.

americans are fucking idiots = wwii thing will prob get some traction

― |citation needed| (will), Wednesday, October 2, 2013 9:45 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agree w/ this

― Andrew Kornfan, Wednesday, October 2, 2013 9:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

americans are... trenchant

fwiw it seem to have gained traction for fox news and their friends, not very noteworthy

if you guys really believed americans are fucking idiots, there wd be no politics threads.

i believe, some americans are idiots

everyone is an idiot sometimes

some people are idiots most of the time

if you guys really believed americans are fucking idiots, there wd be no politics threads.

you believe it and you're always here

wow doesnt really shed too much light on our current political situation, almost a sort of idiotic opinon

xp

A sweeping national effort to extend health coverage to millions of Americans will leave out two-thirds of the poor blacks and single mothers and more than half of the low-wage workers who do not have insurance, the very kinds of people that the program was intended to help, according to an analysis of census data by The New York Times.

Because they live in states largely controlled by Republicans that have declined to participate in a vast expansion of Medicaid, the medical insurance program for the poor, they are among the eight million Americans who are impoverished, uninsured and ineligible for help. The federal government will pay for the expansion through 2016 and no less than 90 percent of costs in later years.

predict all those states will get on board in a couple years once this shits not dominating the news, its free money from the feds and theres tremendous pressure from all sorts of corporate and social interests to accept it

http://i.imgur.com/Svs3g6R.png

lol

yep, once the efficacy of fucking over your own state's most vulnerable people for short-term political gain is maxed out, they'll quietly expand medicaid. whadda country

the constitution was a bad idea http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/10/juan_linz_dies_yale_political_scientist_explains_why_government_by_crisis.html

haha, mcconnell and rand paul had a nice private conversation with the camera and the mic on:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/03/rand-paul-mitch-mcconnell-hot-mic_n_4036591.html

"I just did CNN and I just go over and over again 'We're willing to compromise. We're willing to negotiate.' I think... I don't think they poll tested we won't negotiate. I think it's awful for [Democrats] to say that over and over again," Paul said.
"Yeah, I do too and I, and I just came back from that two hour meeting with them and that, and that was basically the same view privately as it was publicly," McConnell agreed.

Paul added, "I think if we keep saying, 'We wanted to defund it. We fought for that and that we're willing to compromise on this', I think they can't, we're gonna, I think... well, I know we don't want to be here, but we're gonna win this, I think."

oops. what's funny is just before that, mcconnell looks down at his mic and says "i'm all wired up"

sociopaths http://gawker.com/gop-congressman-makes-park-ranger-apologize-for-shutdow-1440577868

its like no-one's ever watched the west wing xp

that gawker story is balls out infuriating

like a bully saying 'stop hitting yourself stop hitting yourself'

xpost

it is true, though, that "we won't negotiate" is not the best talking point for democrats. it's true that the full version (something like "we won't negotiate because the funding of the united states government should not be treated as a poker chip in a negotiation" is reasonable, but they should know that everything in media immediately gets whittled down to the most idiotic soundbyte, and "we won't negotiate" doesn't fly with people who haven't been paying attention (i.e., nearly everyone)

polling is strongly w the democrats fwiw

maybe the republicans have a better line but theyre starting from way behind

not to mention that the current dynamic just reinforces what everyone already thought about the republicans which is that theyre obstructionist

i dont think they can win this one, particularly w the debt limit approaching and big business no doubt preparing to lose their shit over it, and rightfully so

and fwiw the democrats line isnt we wont negotiate its theyre taking the country hostage

yeah, definitely, but i'd never put it past obama/democrats to take a sure thing, completely blow it with idiotic messaging, and then end up compromising even more than they already have (remembering that they seemingly completely forgot about the sequestration levels of funding and let it become the new status quo, and now we're all forced to eat that dogshit for another few months, probably longer). no matter how far ahead they are at the outset, walking around with a "we won't negotiate" soundbyte (even if it's unfairly characterized as that, that's what it ends up sounding like) is pretty odd when the doofus majority of america is like "why won't these bozos in congress just meet in a room and have a beer and negotiate like gentlemen"

we don't negotiate with terrorists is a good soundbyte though

also i think you're overestimating the strength of the polling in favor of the democrats. don't get me wrong, it favors democrats for sure:

the poll asks "Who do you blame more for the government shutdown?":

Republicans - 44%
Democrats/Obama - 35%
Both - 17%

That means that 52% of Americans attribute at least some blame to Democrats, vs 61% to Republicans. that's a significant gap, but not insurmountable

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57605822/poll-americans-not-happy-about-shutdown-more-blame-gop/

it seems like the admin really learned its lesson from 2011 re negotiating abt this stuff, the thing that worries me is the possibility of some larger grand bargain where they give away stuff that they clearly want to give away, like social security cuts

if you can say something for republican intransigence its that its prevented obama from going forward w some of his more wrongheaded centrist bs

duuude come on

Fully 72 percent of Americans disapprove of shutting down the federal government over differences on the Affordable Care Act; just 25 percent approve of this action. Republicans are divided: 48 percent approve, while 49 percent disapprove.