Harry Reid and Barack Obama want a government shutdown.

[Wat_Tyler]

I can use mine.

I have all sorts of pictures of the inside of its case on my belt.

I usually haul my camera with me, but I have forgotten it this week.


This new stimulus involves sitting here and waiting for the phone to ring. First day, New Guy . . . go figure.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

... the waiting is the hardest part!

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Meanwhile, the house will get cleaner.


Hell, I might even finish that novel I have been dawdling with.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Instant Gratification Society

... the waiting is the hardest part!

AJ, I asked Vetty a question and he refuses to answer. Maybe you can help.

Have you ever had a delay in getting an appointment to see your doctor?

Hmmm?

 

[Recidiva]

This is like an ugly divorce issue. Daddy wants baby to grow up tough and strong, mommy wants baby to have a social safety net and support.

So instead of making sure baby does grow up both tough and strong with a social safety net and support...

Obviously the answer is to have an eight-year long custody battle where whatever baby wants is completely ignored.

This is an ugly day in court with parents arguing over kids who would really like emancipation from their bullshit.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Meanwhile, the house will get cleaner.


Hell, I might even finish that novel I have been dawdling with.

I have a lot of health and benefit plans that I need to study today.

I've been procrastinating because there are no clear answers.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

I have a lot of health and benefit plans that I need to study today.

I've been procrastinating because there are no clear answers.

Yeah, no shit. I can manage a 19th-century Russian novel more easily.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Yeah, no shit. I can manage a 19th-century Russian novel more easily.

Amen and pass the Vodka!

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Amen and pass the Vodka!

For some reason, we seem to be fresh out.


Leftover pizza for breakfast rawks!!!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

No borscht?

 

[Wat_Tyler]

The beet crop was pathetic this year.


I could be a long cold winter.


Good thing for this new stimulus.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I celebrate your stimuli!




You are not letting the shut down slow you down!

 

[RobDownSouth]

This is like an ugly divorce issue. Daddy wants baby to grow up tough and strong, mommy wants baby to have a social safety net and support.

So instead of making sure baby does grow up both tough and strong with a social safety net and support...

Obviously the answer is to have an eight-year long custody battle where whatever baby wants is completely ignored.

This is an ugly day in court with parents arguing over kids who would really like emancipation from their bullshit.

I think a better analogy would be an intemperate child named Teaparty running unsupervised through a china shop, smashing everything in his way, crying and screaming....with "mommies" like AJ attempting to mollify the child and make excuses for his behavior, shifting blame in any/all directions, unable or unwilling to accept responsibility for their child.

 

[unregistered]

 

[RobDownSouth]

Were you preoccupied with bean sprouts this morning? Something caused that brain fart.

Quality rebuttal, son.

 

[Recidiva]

I think a better analogy would be an intemperate child named Teaparty running unsupervised through a china shop, smashing everything in his way, crying and screaming....with "mommies" like AJ attempting to mollify the child and make excuses for his behavior, shifting blame in any/all directions, unable or unwilling to accept responsibility for their child.

The Tea Party elected these folks. Yes, the presidential election was clear and President Obama got some landmark legislation pushed through. But the legislative branch is not run by his party. I'm not going to add up every infraction of responsibility and failure of leadership. They add up to enough on both sides for disgust with them.

The parties have both allowed partisanship to be the order of the day. Instead of caring about the issues, the Democrats are making political hay by the bale instead of doing their jobs.

It's useless to the nation if Obama can't get his plan implemented due to obstruction by a completely legal process. It is a clear abuse of a completely legal process.

But you know what? It's the complete abuse of a completely legal process that is the issue. If I saw Obama being brilliant and managing a breakthrough in either altering the process or handling a completely predictable problem, I'd have a different opinion. Instead he's frowning, tsking, and completely enjoying the opportunity to point out that daddy has anger issues instead of getting on with the business of doing his job. He's letting them set the tone and then playing their game instead of his own.

 

[RobDownSouth]

I don't disagree with you, Recidiva. The Republicans have always sought loopholes to exploit rules, they worked the system perfectly when they gerrymandered Congress back in 2010.

What we have here is a completely legal, if unprecedented, attempt to thwart the will of the people. If the Teahadists succeed here, then the era of Majority Rule is effectively over.

It's become nothing more than a battle of political wills, and I believe that the Democrats will emerge triumphant.

 

[Recidiva]

I don't disagree with you, Recidiva. The Republicans have always sought loopholes to exploit rules, they worked the system perfectly when they gerrymandered Congress back in 2010.

What we have here is a completely legal, if unprecedented, attempt to thwart the will of the people. If the Teahadists succeed here, then the era of Majority Rule is effectively over.

It's become nothing more than a battle of political wills, and I believe that the Democrats will emerge triumphant.

I just don't buy the victim attitude, it's political theater. You begged us to let you have the job, now do the job or don't. If it's "don't" then you can't just shake your impotent little fist at the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. You are often considered the most powerful man in the world for a damned reason, use some of that power creatively.

I'm not saying it's an easy problem. It's just a completely predictable problem with no plan to navigate it for the greater good. Anyway, this is why I wouldn't run for president and why I think it's a fairly crap job. You want to get elected on the promise of being inspirational and a problem solver? Solve the problem. We have any number of politicians that have perfected being the problem, you should have a higher standard.

Whoever wins here, the people who lost their jobs and benefits and prescriptions and drove across the country to see Yosemite and had to go to a Denny's instead lose.

 

[RobDownSouth]

There is a small faction in Congress - thirty members tops - who have taken the "any government bad" notion (aka "Dazzle/AJ/Miles syndrome") to an illogical extreme. There's no negotiating with them, they're content to wallow in nihilistic glory.

Gerrymandered districts assure that they won't be held accountable for their actions.

It's worth noting that one man, and one man alone, House Speaker John Boehner, has and had the ability to end this standoff within a day. He simply needs to remove an artificial and extra-constitutional construct (the so-called Hastert Rule) and let the entire House of Representatives vote on the clean CR.

The votes are there to pass the clean CR. It has bipartisan support. The Senate has the votes to pass a clean CR.

The drawback is that Boehner would likely be thrown out of his job by dyspeptic fringe conservatives. He's made the decision that America should suffer so that he might keep his job.

This is a Congressional crisis of their own making. The President has little to nothing to do with this manufactured impasse.

 

[Recidiva]

There is a small faction in Congress - thirty members tops - who have taken the "any government bad" notion (aka "Dazzle/AJ/Miles syndrome") to an illogical extreme. There's no negotiating with them, they're content to wallow in nihilistic glory.

Gerrymandered districts assure that they won't be held accountable for their actions.

It's worth noting that one man, and one man alone, House Speaker John Boehner, has and had the ability to end this standoff within a day. He simply needs to remove an artificial and extra-constitutional construct (the so-called Hastert Rule) and let the entire House of Representatives vote on the clean CR.

The votes are there to pass the clean CR. It has bipartisan support. The Senate has the votes to pass a clean CR.

The drawback is that Boehner would likely be thrown out of his job by dyspeptic fringe conservatives. He's made the decision that America should suffer so that he might keep his job.

This is a Congressional crisis of their own making. The President has little to nothing to do with this manufactured impasse.

But this impasse was clearly manufactured and the Republicans felt arrogantly assured enough to say this was their entire goal. President Obama should have launched a counter campaign. He should have used that bully pulpit to bully back. Not as he has, with "poor me, mean them" but to genuinely get shit done.

This passive resistance and inability to use strategy, but to let stuff just happen without controlling the game, is my problem.

It's like Al Gore saying he's not going to contest the election results, he'll just let George Bush win for the "good of the country."

FUCKING CONTEST IT. And contest it so well that you win. This is not an unpredictable problem.

But look! Nest of vipers! Teeth! Poison! What could I possibly do against that! Waily, waily, waily!

I know. THINK OF SOMETHING.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

But this impasse was clearly manufactured and the Republicans felt arrogantly assured enough to say this was their entire goal. President Obama should have launched a counter campaign. He should have used that bully pulpit to bully back. Not as he has, with "poor me, mean them" but to genuinely get shit done.

This passive resistance and inability to use strategy, but to let stuff just happen without controlling the game, is my problem.

It's like Al Gore saying he's not going to contest the election results, he'll just let George Bush win for the "good of the country."

FUCKING CONTEST IT. And contest it so well that you win. This is not an unpredictable problem.

But look! Nest of vipers! Teeth! Poison! What could I possibly do against that! Waily, waily, waily!

I know. THINK OF SOMETHING.

But you don't know what the real game is there in DC. The real game is always sanitized and cleaned up before we ever see it.

I told you more than once that my opinions of Reid, Pelosi, and Biden were lower than a snakes belly till I read the Bob Woodward book about the last budget crisis. Every time the Dems and GOP made a deal Obama fucked it, even when the deal was his idea. At one point Pelosi got so pissed at Obama she hung the phone up on him during a conference call. The man is pulled hard by his Chicago pals. And the present crisis is prolly a struggle tween Congress and Chicago.

We've had like zero budgets since Obama took office, its been continuing resolutions: Chicago doesn't want budgets, it wants the payola hid.

 

[Recidiva]

But you don't know what the real game is there in DC. The real game is always sanitized and cleaned up before we ever see it.

I told you more than once that my opinions of Reid, Pelosi, and Biden were lower than a snakes belly till I read the Bob Woodward book about the last budget crisis. Every time the Dems and GOP made a deal Obama fucked it, even when the deal was his idea. At one point Pelosi got so pissed at Obama she hung the phone up on him during a conference call. The man is pulled hard by his Chicago pals. And the present crisis is prolly a struggle tween Congress and Chicago.

All I see is the lack of results, and for that, both check and balance are to blame.

If you are The Mailman then I don't want to hear about how rain, snow and dark of night are just unreasonable conditions to have to navigate. I'm sure you guys don't want me to work that hard.

Yeah, Republicans are rain, snow and dark of night. I can understand wanting to preserve a power base up to a certain point and then beyond that it's just obstructionist crap. Do your job. You were not elected to bring government to a standstill, but to keep it sane and keep it running. Fail.

 

[unregistered]

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

All I see is the lack of results, and for that, both check and balance are to blame.

If you are The Mailman then I don't want to hear about how rain, snow and dark of night are just unreasonable conditions to have to navigate. I'm sure you guys don't want me to work that hard.

Yeah, Republicans are rain, snow and dark of night. I can understand wanting to preserve a power base up to a certain point and then beyond that it's just obstructionist crap. Do your job. You were not elected to bring government to a standstill, but to keep it sane and keep it running. Fail.

Dear stop pissing on my foot. The GOP isn't obligated to kiss your ass. You want what you want, and the GOP has its constituents who want something different. Tough shitsky.

 

[Recidiva]

Dear stop pissing on my foot. The GOP isn't obligated to kiss your ass. You want what you want, and the GOP has its constituents who want something different. Tough shitsky.

I'm skimming today and I just shortened that to kiss ass shit.