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

i love how they're increasing taxes on flight fees, but close the tax loophole on the purchase of private planes? socialism!

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/patricia-millett-dc-circuit-court-of-appeals-100944.html

New DC Circuit judge Millett now that prior filibuster rule is gone. 56 to 38 vote with 2 Republicans voting yes--Murkowski and Collins

Dems got rolled, Ezra Klein sez.

8. Democrats flatly got beat on sequestration. Republicans are keeping -- and increasing -- the deficit reduction without ever giving up a dime in taxes. And many Republicans don't want to alter sequestration at all. Ryan entered the negotiations with a much stronger hand than Murray.

9. “I’m proud of this agreement,” Ryan said in a statement. “It reduces the deficit—without raising taxes. And it cuts spending in a smarter way. It’s a firm step in the right direction, and I ask all my colleagues in the House to support it.”

10. This deal is possible only because there are many Republicans who really hate the defense cuts. But there are fewer of those Republicans than there were in the past. There are many fewer of them than Democrats thought in 2011.

11. Whether this deal can be a model for future deals is an open question. The core principle of this deal is that Democrats didn't have to touch entitlements and Republicans didn't have to touch taxes. But a lot of the policies that made that possible got used up in this deal. It's not clear another deal like this would would work in 2016.

basically, dems lost this when they agreed to the sequester. In fairness, defense cuts seemed like a much stronger threat at the time.

yup

if you felt like trying to see some silver lining in this its maybe that republicans are more amenable than they have been in the past to defense cuts

also fees lol http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/12/11/tax_metaphysics_everything_is_a_fee.html

only cuz it's DEFICIT DEFICIT DEFICIT all the time.

xpost

i think too w libertarians gaining more power there is legit more openness, obvs this trend would have to grow for a while before you saw real change but who knows

dems are the washington generals to the GOP's harlem globetrotters

unless you ask a republican

haven't read the full klein piece, i don't entirely agree that dems got rolled (if only because i have some respect for patty murray).

cutting off the long-term unemployed is totally ghoulish. what "dems" (read: all americans) get in trade is the end to cliff/hostage type bullshit (right? i mean, what's the point otherwise), which have done real measurable damage to the economy. and it also clears the deck for all the other work that needs to be done: immigration most importantly, but the farm bill, etc

The most cynical view: Dems didn't get rolled because they agree with sequester anyway, like many of them believe in "entitlement reform."
The most generous view: Sequester is here to stay, let's do the best we can.

Ed Kilgore; What's really going on with the GOP 'civil war'.

Uh I'm on lt UI right now, I sure hope they don't axe it prematurely.

There's something hilariously dad-like about Dubya having his ipad there to show off his paintings to everyone at the meeting

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/1992lko8slvx7jpg/ku-xlarge.jpg

Aboard Air Force One, former President Bush shows photos of his paintings to, from left, First Lady Michelle Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Valerie Jarrett, National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice, Attorney General Eric Holder and former First Lady Laura Bush, Dec. 9, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

wish Eric Holder were reaching over to cuff Dubya tbh

This was the same man who choked on a pretzel, while lying down on a couch watching tv in the White House. Dad-like and hilarious are his m.o.

from that ed kilgore bit:

It its most explicit form, that of the “constitutional conservatives” who really dominate discussion within the GOP and who are likely to produce their next presidential nominee, the only genuinely “American” policies, designed by the Founders according to both natural and divine law, involve a free-market economy with extremely limited government and a traditionalist, largely patriarchal culture. These policies, buttressed by an increasingly chiliastic view of the status quo (e.g., the “Holocaust” of legalized abortion, and the social policy “tipping point” at which an elite-underclass alliance will destroy private property and liberty entirely), simply are not negotiable.

this sounds totally OTT but it's not

Need to jse "chilialistic" in convo more often.

extending the franchise to non-white males who don't own land is totally anti-chiliastic imo. let's get on that, senator paul!

DO IT, SENATOR CHILL

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/192823-senate-gop-plan-30-hour-plus-talkathon-to-protest-nuclear-option

Trying to delay appointment of next Circuit Court nominee. Will they get chiliastic in their talkathon?

it's a good thing the democrats won by so much last year because otherwise you'd swear there's a republican in the white house, they GOP picked up seats in the house, and they won the senate

"The ultimate result [. . .] is a budget that's below even the pipe-dream Ryan budget of 2011. [. . .] Two years ago, Ryan's budget was basically at the outer limit of mainstream conservative wish lists. Today it looks tame."

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/12/war-over-austerity-over-republicans-won

that circuit court judge was confirmed last night btw

"Ninety-two percent of the sequester is left intact," the Wisconsin Republican said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."

I was previously impressed with Senator Patty Murray, but her reasonable inside the beltway adult negotiation style with Ryan here seems to be a bit problematic.

You can tell Dems and GOP are different species from their press conferences: GOP touting its victory, Dems touting bipartisanship.

You are going to hear more and more about bipartisanship from the dems because they've realized that word works wonders in undermining republicans. For example:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/gop-rep-upset-that-budget-deal-was-designed-to-pass-with-bipartisan-support

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/reid-aide-gives-cornyn-democratic-bear-hug

Basically, they are making every effort to stoke the clashes between the different wings of the GOP.

that's nice but there are people who will starve between now and the new year

...who usually don't vote, and who can blame them?

otherwise you'd swear there's a republican in the white house, they GOP picked up seats in the house, and they won the senate

I just swear there's no difference

xpost

sure, and who knows if it will end up being a winning strategy? They are all excited about an extremist challenger to John Cornyn, but if this guy wins, then what? It's not going to be an auto-win for the democratic nom. Most likely we'll just end up with an even worse senator.

The same is true for any of these cases. Discrediting a more moderate republican in no way means a democrat will take their place.

...who usually don't vote, and who can blame them?

otherwise you'd swear there's a republican in the white house, they GOP picked up seats in the house, and they won the senate

I just swear there's no difference

― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Thursday, December 12, 2013 11:30 AM (55 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i know this is very hard for you all to understand but your particular views dont constitute the definition of what makes a democrat as opposed to a republican, democrats for sure miscalculated badly on the sequester but i assure you this deal would look very different if republicans did control congress and the presidency

for instance republicans agreed to raise taxes, they just called them fees

no I get it – Reagan did the same with cig taxes.

was talking to morbs and qualmsley

clinton/lieberman 2016 ~ "things may suck, but they could be worse!"

always worth considering

always a convenient excuse, too. "our capitulation to their austerity agenda just goes to show how much worse their unfettered austerity would be!" is a pretty wimpy rationale from a party that controls the white house and the senate

lol its unfortunately not capitulation a lot of democratic politicians heartily support austerity

but in this case it was mostly just bad strategizing around the sequester rather than any sort of ideological failing

yes which is why the party needs to be utterly destroyed

(to both)

if the democrats had the GOP's strength of conviction to go along with the white house and the senate, then like bernie sanders, elizabeth warren, or sherrod brown, not patti murray, would have been negotiating with paul ryan. but instead we get this bullshit

morbs there are lot of politicians in the democratic party that dont agree w austerity too, you would be destroying the only people who agree with you on this topic, and fwiw the trend is def away from austerity aka economic populism for the dems

if you would like to even just as a thought experiment consider the sequester a sunk cost and look at todays deal as a baseline then it was a pretty dece deal for the democrats

if the democrats had the GOP's strength of conviction to go along with the white house and the senate, then like bernie sanders, elizabeth warren, or sherrod brown, not patti murray, would have been negotiating with paul ryan. but instead we get this bullshit

― reggie (qualmsley), Thursday, December 12, 2013 12:38 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this honestly has nothing at all to do with strength of conviction

if you say so

worth considering too that while only like 6% of the sequester got rolled back it was all stuff that was set to happen very soon, seeing that there was consensus that this needed to happen it stands to reason that more could get rolled back in the future

it doesnt many dem politicians just have different convictions than you xp

also as i said this was mostly a strategic blunder re the sequester

i like where that radical bill moyers is coming from, and i'm curious what democrats are doing about any of this, aside from not being republicans

"Why are record numbers of Americans on food stamps? Because record numbers of Americans are in poverty. Why are people falling through the cracks? Because there are cracks to fall through. It is simply astonishing that in this rich nation more than 21 million Americans are still in need of full-time work, many of them running out of jobless benefits, while our financial class pockets record profits, spends lavishly on campaigns to secure a political order that serves its own interests, and demands that our political class push for further austerity. Meanwhile, roughly 46 million Americans live at or below the poverty line and, with the exception of Romania, no developed country has a higher percent of kids in poverty than we do."

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175783/