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

yeah I looked at this map of the Tea Party Caucus today (maybe that answers my earlier question about the 40 GOP reps "forcing" Boehner on the shutdown)?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/c/cd/Tea_party_membership_112_congress.svg/800px-Tea_party_membership_112_congress.svg.png

and it's concentrated in the Great Plains and Mid South. The Great Plains is its own world (I lived there until last year for about 7 years). still remember people telling when I moved there that they didn't get the fuss about 9/11, because it was so far away: like, maybe that's quite right, but it made clear how separate you feel living there. and concerns out there are mostly with land and water management. there's little exposure to diversity, so those concerns don't matter. state GDPs are pretty average, there's no massive underclass like in the Deep South. so I can see better why those people think the shutdown is not bad and maybe good: because they don't think it matters to them. and I dunno, maybe they're kinda right to think that? sucks to be us living in the Great Blue North though.

Tea Partiers have tons of gold buried in their backyard. That's why they have so many guns, to protect them. But don't think for a second if you come for the guns you'll get the gold, because don't tread on me. And if they get sick and die, they demand to be buried with their gold and guarded by their children, to whom they leave their guns. Vicious, tragic cycle.

Tea Partiers want to be buried in their own Sutton Hoo

Holy crap at Kansas and Nebraska.

distro of TP in the south kinda interesting

ah yes, the glorious scumbags in the ne mpls/stpl exurbs fully represented in that map i see

ie none in Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas

xp

i love how that map also would be totally plausible as a news graphic in some zombie apocalypse pandemic flick

CA TP faction appears to cover Yosemite. I bet those folks out there countin on them tourist dollars are just lovin that shit

Missouri

There's a red band across the center of the state.

sorry meant Mississippi but I see the southeast corner there is TPd too

near as I can tell the tea party legislative agenda is becoming even more of an extended performance of Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" as the shutdown continues

tbh i think the current climate feels more like the who's "we're not gonna take it," with all of us trapped at tommy's twisted holiday camp.

surprised to see so much of new mexico on that map. i thought it was liberal-ish (for the intermountain west) and hispanic?

also isn't all of southern new mexico basically military bases or w/e

seems like the tea party caucus is pretty heterogeneous from this tbh

pretty heterosexual tbh

new mexico is basically fascists

old white angry fascists

no wait I'm thinking of Arizona. yeah NM on that map is weird.

haha yeah that's arizona. new mexico though. what's the matter with new mexico, is what i wanna know.

old white angry..... sands

even more of an extended performance of Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" as the shutdown continues

saw a comparison to "throw it on the ground," which seemed about right.

All that red in NM is one district.

populated by only one person

a lot of sand

the tea party map really illustrates how next-level the gerrymandering is in Texas

yep. those three tea party districts like knives carving into the heart of austin

surprised to see so much of new mexico on that map. i thought it was liberal-ish (for the intermountain west) and hispanic?
--JEFF 22 (Matt P)

There's a lot of libertarians in NM iirc

Xpost

I live in that tiny sliver connecting the two bigger blobs. It sucks!

The bailing started last week. It’ll continue until the 18th (i.e. it’ll likely be priced in, unfortunately).

― Allen (etaeoe), Wednesday, October 9, 2013 1:41 AM (21 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so. i'm full of shit. dji was flat today. commence meltdown.

Per the thread title, it's telling that Hillary has been totally sitting this mess out.

She's out of the government now. Pushing her opinion out into the media would just look like attention whoring.

For sure. It's just always interesting when massively public figures suddenly turn the switch off and disappear. Obviously she knows she has nothing to gain politically from participating in the current maelstrom.

one side of my family lives in NM and they are the most fucked up tea party supporting group of uneducated people you'll ever meet.

would the Whites have been in the Tea Party

NYTimes:

WASHINGTON — As the government shutdown grinds toward a potential debt default, some of the country’s most influential business executives have come to a conclusion all but unthinkable a few years ago: Their voices are carrying little weight with the House majority that their millions of dollars in campaign contributions helped build and sustain.

Their frustration has grown so intense in recent days that several trade association officials warned in interviews on Wednesday that they were considering helping wage primary campaigns against Republican lawmakers who had worked to engineer the political standoff in Washington.

Woo hoo! probably won't happen. Meanwhile on the other side of the aisle:

Will the Progressive Caucus on the Hill show more backbone than they have in the past in standing up to Obama and Ryan entitlement reform ideas. Here's something from back in January questioning them

http://www.rootsaction.org/news-a-views/576-the-progressive-caucus-enabling-obamas-rightward-moves

whole article is intriguing:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/10/us/business-groups-see-loss-of-sway-over-house-gop.html?hp

While both parties have extreme elements, he suggested, only in the G.O.P. did the extreme element exercise real power. “The extreme right has 90 seats in the House,” Mr. Echevarria said. “Occupy Wall Street has no seats.”

i can't bring myself over to the side that corporate fatcats should use their lobbying power for "good"

Hah, perhaps underscores how bad "bad" has gotten.

We need states full of wacko lefties like me and Hoosteen

to which Bachmann, et al would say, "Congress doesn't need Occupy Wall Street to have seats. Congressional Democrats ARE Occupy Wall Street socialists."

I loved that NYT article, and corporate fatcats primarying tea-partiers would definitely be 'good', if only for the total GOP civil war it would start. But a point that the article sorta raises, but then fails on following up on, is that the corporations helped create this mess, since they themselves turned their lobbying/financing powers extremely right-ward because their financial views are extremely right-wing and out of touch with what most americans want!

Exclamation point! Because everything becomes more true with an exclamation point!!

That tea party map is fascinating. Good luck Kansas/Nebraska.

Politico had an article yesterday that suggested that the corporate powers that be are just eager for entitlement reform and tax reform. Obviously their ideas of reform aren't exactly gonna be conducive to helping the 99%

http://washingtonexaminer.com/new-gop-strategy-offer-deal-on-debt-limit-but-keep-shutdown-fight-going/article/2537083

With Pentagon civilians and many other civilian government workers redefined and back at work, there's less pressure on House Republicans. A full shutdown with no retirement payments and no mail and no air traffic controllers might have have made them blink, but not this

the pressure is applied by the debt limit

But that October 17th (or real damage later debt limit) does not address folks unable to get into NIH experimental cancer treatment sessions now, folks seeking mortgage paperwork now, folks waiting for VA disability claims to be ruled on now. This partial shutdown of government workers is being forgotten despite the consequences

i dont think its being forgotten at all, i mean

http://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/intelligencer/2013/10/09/09-party-unfavorable-ratings.o.jpg/a_560x375.jpg