Political Roundtable - Part VI

[hands11]

Wow, now Cantor is arguing equal protection under the law ?

Weak. What an ass.

Congress has to use the exchanges by law which is this ACA bill. The bill didn't need to be written that way but it was amended to include that. Go find out by who. They were already insured by their employers who were paying toward it. So they tried to do a good thing by making them eat their own cooking by making them go to the exchanges. Even when if they were like you and me and insured, they wouldn't. But they are forced into the exchanges anyway. They were getting employer contributions toward their insurance before, so now Cantor's fall back is to complain because part of their medical get paid for by the government ?

He is arguing equal protection under the law. If that was true, they shouldn't even be in the exchanges.

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. They are masters of lying and spinning things to confuse people. So many people would be confused by what he is saying if they don't know the facts and he know that. And that what makes otherwise reasonable people no understand they are on the wrong side and it pits people that would be reasonable against each other. That is evil.

Look, their employers already gave them insurance. If they were regular people, they wouldn't need to use the exchanges, just like I don't because my employer offer insurance and contributes to it.



They know they are lying and they know exactly how they are confusing people using their basic sense of fairness against them. They know they are shutting down the government, not the Dems. They now there is a budget ready to get sent to conference since a bill part the house and one passed the senate. Yet since March they have not appointed people to do to conference to get a budget passed.

WHY ? BECAUSE THEY WANT THIS DYSFUNCTION.

Its down right sick what they do. SICK. IMMORAL. UNPATRIOTIC. DESTRUCTIVE TO OUR REPUBLIC.

I will say it again. They are TERRORISTS. And the balless non TP Rs are complicit.

[pancakes3]

I'm a conservative and what the Republicans are doing right now is reprehensible. I'm not even going to pretend to defend their actions.

[W. Unseld]

Looking from the outside in, I think the current Republican strategy is dumb and doomed to fail (but truly saying they are terrorists is a bit much and ignores all the other shenannigans that go on in Congress from both parties. I don't like dehumanizing on any level).

If I were the R's I would say "We will agree to raise the debt ceiling--again--(note that that's also an issue) but there will be no amendments exempting any member of congress or the executive from ACA or any regs or amendments that could be interpretted as helping to subsidize the costs of ACA for any member of congress or the executive."

Laws that congress tries to exempt or shield itself from (and there are many) cause me to wonder.

[Zonkerbl]

I've been trying to bite my tongue, because when you have nothing nice to say...

But I've gotta say this: The Tea Partiers have accomplished nothing... NOTHING... that they were sent to Congresss to do. Their political support has evaporated. This is their last chance to wring some sort of victory out of the endless string of failures they have suffered. They know they will have significantly reduced numbers after the next election and they know the Republican party will be in the minority again in the House -- largely because of their failure. Today is the last chance they have to discredit Obamacare before it comes into force and people start learning what it really is. We are witnessing the death of a political movement, and -based as it was on hatred and stupidity- the result is violent and ugly. So nothing that's going on now surprises me -- I'm unhappy about it, but I'm not surprised.

[W. Unseld]

This isn't the first or second dumb thing they have done and while you can always find whackos and haters in every group, I don't think a group that stands for "taxed enough already" was founded on hatred. There are whack jobs in every movement but most tea party affiliates in our area--and I strenuously disagree with them in Virginia where debt really isn't an issue--are mom types just getting into politics who are worried about the massive amounts of debt the government is incurring. I don't think they are very sophisticated politically, I know there are certainly hateful people in the group as you will find in any movement (Occupy Wallstreet encampments had several rapes or at least rape accusations but I don't think the movement is based on hateful rapists) but current stupidity aside I think they were immediately targeted and mocked. They've earned some of it but that doesn't mean the idea behind concern over the debt was subterfuge for a KKK uprising.

[Wizardspride]

This isn't the first or second dumb thing they have done and while you can always find whackos and haters in every group, I don't think a group that stands for "taxed enough already" was founded on hatred. There are whack jobs in every movement but most tea party affiliates in our area--and I strenuously disagree with them in Virginia where debt really isn't an issue--are mom types just getting into politics who are worried about the massive amounts of debt the government is incurring. I don't think they are very sophisticated politically, I know there are certainly hateful people in the group as you will find in any movement (Occupy Wallstreet encampments had several rapes or at least rape accusations but I don't think the movement is based on hateful rapists) but current stupidity aside I think they were immediately targeted and mocked. They've earned some of it but that doesn't mean the idea behind concern over the debt was subterfuge for a KKK uprising.

Maybe not but Bush spent us into oblivion for 8 years and nary a peep.

All of a sudden when a certain person takes office the cries of "We want our country back", etc etc.

I could go on and on but it would just anger me.....

[barelyawake]

Wes, it isn't a KKK rally, and yes they are mostly just ignorant of the facts. Why? Because their news sources lie to them continually. But also, to deny that a good deal of them are older, southern, white people who quietly harbor ingrained racism seems to be ignoring the facts. The south didn't suddenly, magically transform from confederate flags to a land of equality. It's better than when I was a kid. But, a large portion of that is people no longer voice what they think. The younger generation of the south? Yes, mostly not racists. Our generation? I mean I remember a time driving through the south when everywhere I stopped I couldn't have one damn conservation without race coming up.

[hands11]

Looking from the outside in, I think the current Republican strategy is dumb and doomed to fail (but truly saying they are terrorists is a bit much and ignores all the other shenannigans that go on in Congress from both parties. I don't like dehumanizing on any level).

If I were the R's I would say "We will agree to raise the debt ceiling--again--(note that that's also an issue) but there will be no amendments exempting any member of congress or the executive from ACA or any regs or amendments that could be interpretted as helping to subsidize the costs of ACA for any member of congress or the executive."

Laws that congress tries to exempt or shield itself from (and there are many) cause me to wonder.

You are missing the point. They are not getting shielded. Actually the opposite is true.

They were written into the law such that they were forced into the exchanges when if they were you or me, they wouldn't be using the exchanges. They were already covered by their employer. They were also already getting contribution from their employer. So what they did was say, ok, we are focusing you into the exchanges, but we will still contribute.

If not, they are getting a pay cut.

Now how is that fair ? The intention of the law was not to cut the staffers pay.

[hands11]

I've been trying to bite my tongue, because when you have nothing nice to say...

But I've gotta say this: The Tea Partiers have accomplished nothing... NOTHING... that they were sent to Congresss to do. Their political support has evaporated. This is their last chance to wring some sort of victory out of the endless string of failures they have suffered. They know they will have significantly reduced numbers after the next election and they know the Republican party will be in the minority again in the House -- largely because of their failure. Today is the last chance they have to discredit Obamacare before it comes into force and people start learning what it really is. We are witnessing the death of a political movement, and -based as it was on hatred and stupidity- the result is violent and ugly. So nothing that's going on now surprises me -- I'm unhappy about it, but I'm not surprised.

Actually they accomplished exactly what they were sent there to do. They ran on shutting down the government. And now they have. The people that voted for them couldn't be happier right now. All the posturing for the masses is just that. The real TPs know they meant to do this.

The death is to the republican party, not to the Tea Party. Locals TPs will continue to elect them.

The problem is, the tea party apart form the Republican party do not have the votes to win a presidency. But all they need is a few Senators and they can continue to clog up the works.

Now if they change the filibuster rules, then they won't have much say in anything if that happens. But to them, thats probably ok. They would view this are the beginning stages of growing a permanent party so they can become the true party of the right instead of the establishment republicans. They can sell that story locally to get elected, even as a minority. They will say, just give us time. We will grown a real righteous right party

For now they are happy to roll individual bills out there in an attempt to have Dems reject one after another so they can confuse the issue and make the Dems look like they are the ones that are playing games and unreasonable.

This is about a lot of things. They do hate Obama. But its just as much about the Tea Party vs Establishment Republicans. Both sides think they will win the game against each other long term and right now they need each other. But when the party gets nearer to closing, these two sides are going to stab each other until one is dead. That the fight to keep you eyes peeled for. TP vs ERs

Remember, Ted Cruz a junior senator went over to the house and whipped the party over Bauhners authority over his members. That was a huge stab in the back. Bauhner will want to get him back for that when he gets a chance.

[Zonkerbl]

Tea Partiers are unmistakably racist. It is only thinly disguised and anyone who is fooled by it doesn't want to see it.

[Wizardspride]

Tea Partiers are unmistakably racist. It is only thinly disguised and anyone who is fooled by it doesn't want to see it.

Sadly, I have to agree with you.

[hands11]

Don't want to get into any argument about left/right, but I don't like how politicians on both sides "twist" facts.

Hands, your statement about that the deficit is going down is a strawman.

Pretend 10 year period.
My income never goes up during this period and I make $50,000..however my lifestyle is at $60,000
Year 1-9, I rack up 90,000 in CC debt.
In year 10, I cut my spending...and proclaim victory because instead of going into debt at the rate of 10,000 per year...I'm doing it at a rate of 8,000 (58,000 year). You're still in bad shape and it''s nothing to brag at.

PLUS, you still have to pay back another 98,000 in debt....which at 58,000 per year is looking impossible.

Our warped sense of deficit reduction is spending "less", but still spending above our means vs paying off current and past debts. How we get there can be debated...but I consider the above required progress but FAR from victory.

I understood your example. My point was it is not adequate. Also, I never said decreasing annual deficits was enough.

My point was simple. We are heading in the right direction. The annual debt to GDP has dropped a good bit.

Of course we have to do better and growing the economy i.e. the GDP is a big part of that.

To pay down the accumulated debt its going to take some annual surplus. But correct me if I'm wrong, but the last time we had that, the Rs ran for the presidency on a platform that said, the government is taking to much ... they have a surplus.. so I am here to demand a refund ( tax cuts ).

As usual, they told a overly simple story that was a actually a lie and they talked the people into voting against the countries and their childrens best interest. We should have left tax levels alone and continued to pay do the accumulated debt. That would have been the moral, patriotic, responsible thing to do. Specially since the people with the most political power at the time where the very same people that created that debt.

Do you agree with with that or not ?

Stuff you learn when you are a child. Clean up after your own mess. If they want to teach a simple message, I recommend they adopt that one.

[hands11]

Wes, it isn't a KKK rally, and yes they are mostly just ignorant of the facts. Why? Because their news sources lie to them continually. But also, to deny that a good deal of them are older, southern, white people who quietly harbor ingrained racism seems to be ignoring the facts. The south didn't suddenly, magically transform from confederate flags to a land of equality. It's better than when I was a kid. But, a large portion of that is people no longer voice what they think. The younger generation of the south? Yes, mostly not racists. Our generation? I mean I remember a time driving through the south when everywhere I stopped I couldn't have one damn conservation without race coming up.

You don't have to travel very far to experience it still. Hell, I can drive to Richmond and still run into these people. Like I said, I have friends that are country people and they have country friends... ok who are we fooling.. they are rednecks. And proud of it.

And its not hard to racist people.. they think.. hey, its just white people here so I will say what I really think. Specially when they are on their turf. So I hear stuff that is out right racist. They don't hide it. Hell, I heard one person out right say, if he get elected ( the first time), I hope they shoot him. Yeah. Even in today age there are people that would say something like that. Ok course me knowing this person, I told them how f'd up it was they just said that and that it was ignorant. Hell, if it ok for them to speak their mind, I'm going to do the same.

A lot of times its about jobs. People are hurting so anything that has to do with set asides drives them nuts. And its hard to blame them for hating that. They don't do a good job of understanding what the shoe on the other foot feels like. Gotta suck to always be looked at like you are doing something wrong just because of your skin color. Not sure they fully appreciate the road blocks that have been in place for other people. Even women.

White people, specially white males, are a little clueless regarding the advantages they have had. Again, easy to understand because they were always white. Its all they know. Hey, as a younger I learned it was my generation that was paying for the bad things that previous generations had done. I didn't find that fair. But as I matured, I did learn to understand that what's right, its always fair to everyone at that time.

The good news is, with every generation, it seems to get better. Children don't know racism. Its something that is learned from others who raised you or through experience. Its going to take both sides doing a better job. Me personally, I had black dudes as my best friend a few times throughout my life. And my personal experience was it was them, not me, who made it an issue at times. But I get that. That were raised by parents that experienced it and probably told them stuff. And they experienced it. So I get it was harder for them to ignore the color thing then it might have been for me. But being an Italian that tanned very well, I have a small taste of how the color of your skin can effect how some look at you. Specially when you group up in a very WASP/Jewish neighborhood.

Progresses do not equal perfection. But over time, we hope to form a more perfect union.

[hands11]

80 House members: Shutdown better than ObamaCare

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08 ... obamacare/

A letter from 80 Republicans asked Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to resist any spending bills that would accommodate the new health care law, which is nearing a critical stage of signing up millions of Americans for health coverage.

The House letter was authored by Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C. It urges Boehner "to affirmatively de-fund the implementation and enforcement of Obamacare in any relevant appropriations bill," including "any continuing appropriations bill."

--

Kind of surprised Fox still have this on their web site.

Props to Rep Scott Rigell (R) of Virginia for coming out again gerrymandering.

Interesting read
http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/jay-bookman/ ... -guys-did/

[hands11]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_-t7lGR8tI[/youtube]

[Nivek]

I agree with Zonk, BA and Wizardspride that there is unmistakable racism from the Tea Party folks. I don't agree with Zonk that it's the death of a political movement, however -- at least not in the House. Most of the Tea Party reps are elected from extremely conservative districts. They won primaries and got in office largely by being "the most conservative," which means ripping Obama, ripping liberals, and railing against the "theys" and "thems" who are ruining America.

I think a fair number of Tea Party folks will get re-elected in the House, though I do think they'll struggle in state-level elections where the appeal needs to be broader. Keep in mind that even right now, the Tea Party caucus isn't representing some vast, silent majority. They're reduced to playing games with continuing resolutions and increases in the debt limit to try and get what they want. They can't get it through the legislative process because they don't have the votes and they don't have widespread support from the public.

The thing that would do the most to end this sort of extreme political movement would be to terminate gerrymandering. It's not a stretch to say that the GOP enjoys a majority in the House in large part because of gerrymandering. In the last election, Dems got something like 1.4 million more House votes than the GOP did.

[Zonkerbl]

Well, to elaborate:
The Tea Party saw its success largely because a handful of billionaires chose to harness their new freedom to make unlimited contributions to specific campaigns to the racism and stupidity of the Tea Party movement to mold its agenda to their specific wishes. The Tea Partiers are angry that Obama is black -- they don't care what his policies are. They are also stupid, so they are easy to manipulate. That's how the Tea Party platform ended up being a wish list for rich people.

Yes, I get that the actual Tea Partiers themselves think that "fighting the good fight" is enough. Well, if I'm a billionaire investing a ton of money in a campaign to get what I want, that's not enough. I think the billionaire support of the Tea Party will dry up, if they lose the present fight, which is why they are fighting so desperately. I just don't see how they can win, given the losing strategy they have adopted. Or to be precise, the only way they can win is through setting off an economic nuclear bomb by defaulting on the U.S. debt. The billionaires, not being idiots, will realize that their net returns from this course of action is negative, but what scares me is they may be willing to do it to scare the U.S. public into docilely accepting whatever their corporate owners demand in the future.

Billionaires know they are better than other people. They are smarter, wealthier. They make the rules. They're the ones that wrote the constitution in the first place, to protect their wealth from Kings. But now that there are no more kings, I'm afraid they've decided to scrap the whole "rule of law" thing in the place of "rule based on what rich people want." And killing Obamacare is a good test of whether they have the tools in place to accomplish that or not.

And the scariest thing is that, if they fail to kill Obamacare, they will just have to dismantle the democratic system further in order to get what they want. And eventually they will succeed. It's just a matter of time.

In fact, the only thing slowing them down is that the internet makes it easier for the rest of us to organize against them. It's an empirical question -- will the lower costs of organizing politically and the increased costs of enforcing censorship on the internet effectively stymie the billionaires' ability to buy political influence?

[Wizardspride]

Click on the link to read the rest.
http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2013/10/ ... ion-party/


The Nullification Party

I’ve been trying to think of something original to say about the absurdity now transpiring in Washington, DC. I’ve said roughly what I think in short; and I defer to Fallows for an important dose of reality against the predictably moronic coverage of the Washington Post.

But there is something more here. How does one party that has lost two presidential elections and a Supreme Court case – as well as two Senate elections - think it has the right to shut down the entire government and destroy the full faith and credit of the United States Treasury to get its way on universal healthcare now? I see no quid pro quo even. Just pure blackmail, resting on understandable and predictable public concern whenever a major reform is enacted. But what has to be resisted is any idea that this is government or politics as usual. It is an attack on the governance and the constitutional order of the United States.

When ideologies become as calcified, as cocooned and as extremist as those galvanizing the GOP, the American system of government cannot work. But I fear this nullification of the last two elections is a deliberate attempt to ensure that the American system of government as we have known it cannot work. It cannot, must not work, in the mindset of these radicals, because they simply do not accept the legitimacy of a President and Congress of the opposing party. The GOP does not regard the president as merely wrong – but as illegitimate. Not misguided – illegitimate. This is not about ending Obamacare as such (although that is a preliminary scalp); it is about nullifying this presidency, the way the GOP attempted to nullify the last Democratic presidency by impeachment.

Except this time, of course, we cannot deny that race too is an added factor to the fathomless sense of entitlement felt among the GOP far right. You saw it in birtherism; in the Southern GOP’s constant outrageous claims of Obama’s alleged treason and alliance with Islamist enemies; in providing zero votes for a stimulus that was the only thing that prevented a global depression of far worse proportions; in the endless race-baiting from Fox News and the talk radio right. And in this racially-charged atmosphere, providing access to private healthcare insurance to the working poor is obviously the point of no return.

[hands11]

I agree with Zonk, BA and Wizardspride that there is unmistakable racism from the Tea Party folks. I don't agree with Zonk that it's the death of a political movement, however -- at least not in the House. Most of the Tea Party reps are elected from extremely conservative districts. They won primaries and got in office largely by being "the most conservative," which means ripping Obama, ripping liberals, and railing against the "theys" and "thems" who are ruining America.

I think a fair number of Tea Party folks will get re-elected in the House, though I do think they'll struggle in state-level elections where the appeal needs to be broader. Keep in mind that even right now, the Tea Party caucus isn't representing some vast, silent majority. They're reduced to playing games with continuing resolutions and increases in the debt limit to try and get what they want. They can't get it through the legislative process because they don't have the votes and they don't have widespread support from the public.

The thing that would do the most to end this sort of extreme political movement would be to terminate gerrymandering. It's not a stretch to say that the GOP enjoys a majority in the House in large part because of gerrymandering. In the last election, Dems got something like 1.4 million more House votes than the GOP did.

Yet you don't list me who wrote basically the same thing you just wrote.

[hands11]

Well, to elaborate:
The Tea Party saw its success largely because a handful of billionaires chose to harness their new freedom to make unlimited contributions to specific campaigns to the racism and stupidity of the Tea Party movement to mold its agenda to their specific wishes. The Tea Partiers are angry that Obama is black -- they don't care what his policies are. They are also stupid, so they are easy to manipulate. That's how the Tea Party platform ended up being a wish list for rich people.

Yes, I get that the actual Tea Partiers themselves think that "fighting the good fight" is enough. Well, if I'm a billionaire investing a ton of money in a campaign to get what I want, that's not enough. I think the billionaire support of the Tea Party will dry up, if they lose the present fight, which is why they are fighting so desperately. I just don't see how they can win, given the losing strategy they have adopted. Or to be precise, the only way they can win is through setting off an economic nuclear bomb by defaulting on the U.S. debt. The billionaires, not being idiots, will realize that their net returns from this course of action is negative, but what scares me is they may be willing to do it to scare the U.S. public into docilely accepting whatever their corporate owners demand in the future.

Billionaires know they are better than other people. They are smarter, wealthier. They make the rules. They're the ones that wrote the constitution in the first place, to protect their wealth from Kings. But now that there are no more kings, I'm afraid they've decided to scrap the whole "rule of law" thing in the place of "rule based on what rich people want." And killing Obamacare is a good test of whether they have the tools in place to accomplish that or not.

And the scariest thing is that, if they fail to kill Obamacare, they will just have to dismantle the democratic system further in order to get what they want. And eventually they will succeed. It's just a matter of time.

In fact, the only thing slowing them down is that the internet makes it easier for the rest of us to organize against them. It's an empirical question -- will the lower costs of organizing politically and the increased costs of enforcing censorship on the internet effectively stymie the billionaires' ability to buy political influence?

Well they did shut down the government and they have currently given the TP/Rs a platform for spewing more " what sound like it makes reasonable sense " messaging out there.

They are hammering the message of.. we are reasonable. We have compromised. Just open the national parks. Just treat the congress and their staffers like everyone else. Equal protection under the law. Hey, we are ready to go to conference now ( with the dems having a gun to their head and only to fund the government for 6 week, but those are just details).

To people that don't understand what is really going on, most of what they are saying sounds reasonable, and the government is shut down. I think they would feel they are gotten some return on their investment.

But the Dems are doing a good job countering all that with the truth. They did compromised by agreeing to a short term budget at the Rs requested levels. There is a clean CR **** there ready to get voted on, then they can go to conference and work out a long term budget. And all this shut down is over funding the government for only like 6 weeks. Thats all the clean CR does. So the partial government shut down is over funding the government until November 15, 2013 ? That's a hard argument to win.

When the facts are that easy to explain, its hard to see how the TP/Rs win this round.

Pass the clean CR to fund the government until November 15, 2013, then go to conference and work out a budget for the entire year. Pretty simple and reasonable offering from the Dems.