Someday, hopefully soon, Republicans will, once again, show a genuine interest in good governance. Until then, we get this shit:
Heritage Action for America – one of the conservative groups leading the charge to pressure Republican lawmakers against voting to continue government spending unless they can defund President Barack Obama’s health care law – said its new poll of likely voters in 10 relatively competitive congressional districts showed that forcing such a shutdown would not be fatal for the GOP in 2014.
The right question isn’t whether shutting down the government will hurt a political party. The right question is whether shutting down the government will hurt the United States of America!
Of course, some old-guard Republicans have come out against a government shutdown. Not because it is terrible for Americans and America, but because they remember the hit they took the last time they tried that little trick.
Instead, some of these asswipes have decided that, if not a shutdown of the Federal government, they will, instead, refuse to raise the debt ceiling—that is, they will refuse to pay for the stuff they’ve already bought. The last time they tried that, the U.S. took a bond rating hit. And notice the “big picture” reason for that downgrade by S&P (emphasis added):
More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned….
Again, these shitheads fail to seriously consider this question: “Is defaulting on our debt good for America, or does it harm America?”
Jonathan Chait enlightens us:
This is actually even more dangerous than shutting down the government. A government shutdown is disruptive, but can be endured. Nobody knows just what would happen if Congress were to default on payments to holders of Treasury bills, but it could be catastrophic, and at the very least would probably spur bondholders to demand a premium from Washington for years or decades to come. Republicans here are talking themselves out of using a conventional bomb and instead using a nuclear bomb.
These douche bags would gladly suffocate America to within inches of death if they could manage to squeeze even a tiny political advantage out of it….
“We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests.”
The grifters and traitors now inhabiting the Former Republican party in Congress are doing just that. We no longer have a “Defense Department”, we have a “Cash Flow for Party Supporters Department”.
They actively seek out the largest contributions from the weapons industry under the threat of cutting off their profit guarantees, and then the companies that participate in that disseminate huge amounts of propaganda about how poor and defenseless we are, and how much weaker we would be if we didn’t keep buying their $billion aircraft that can’t be flown in the rain, and $trillion computerized weapons systems that can’t even be used on a real battlefield.
Our National Defense isn’t based at all on actual defense, nor is the weapons budget spent on actual, functioning weapons.
We defeated the Germans and the Japanese with a seven dollar rifle.
The reality is, the Republican Party has been trying to eliminate the Republic for close to a century now. Their stated intention is to turn all governmental function over to private party organizations and eliminate the Republic as a system of general government and law enforcement, accountable to the Citizenry.
With the privatization of military and law enforcement, one would have a system of mercenary organizations that would compete with each other on one hand, while colluding to widen the permissibility of the scope of their actions and indemnify themselves from responsibility for those actions on the other.
Private corporations can now demand issuance of warrants for searches and confiscations of property, with absolutely no probable cause requirement or evidence except a “suspicion”.
Monsanto does it, as does ADM, as does Apple, as does every movie studio and record company in the Country. The banks have been running absolutely amuck with their total immunity from prosecution for using falsified affidavits and manufactured interests in properties they’ve been foreclosing on.
Over 30 million people have had their houses confiscated over the last 7 years. Most of them had no way to challenge those foreclosures for the basic reason that the original documents, as stated in several examples of sworn testimony, are destroyed as soon as they are processed after the initial loan transaction has been completed. So there is literally no evidence of their rights to the property at all.
No, the GOP will never be trusted by the people again if they shut down the Government. It would coincide too much with the rest of their openly stated agenda of eliminating the publics interest in Government.
@1 And North Vietnam defeated us with a five dollar rifle.
America has more guns in private hands than any other country, so we should have the lowest crime rate, right?
Oops.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....ostpopular
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Hmm, maybe instead of deterring crime, guns facilitate crime, you suppose?
I think a government shutdown is a good thing. It’ll have some unpleasant side effects like old people not getting their social security checks, veterans not getting their disability checks, doctors not getting their medicare checks, and active duty military personnel not getting their paychecks, chow, or ammo resupply. But that’s a small price to pay for cutting off corporate welfare and making the plutocrats live on their own incomes, even if for only a week or two. Maybe Jamie Dimon will have to get a real job if he can’t get welfare anymore.
During a DUMMOCRAPT sadministration!
Didn’t we retreat and bug-out under Nixon?
@7 Puddles thinks Nixon was a “dummocrapt.”
@8
He’s kind of….simple…isn’t he?
@10
Dumb and nasty is not a winning combination.
@ 9
No, not simple. Simplicity implies a certain basic utility. SpittlePuddles isn’t simple. He’s just dumber’n a sack of horseshit.
@9 LIAR fits better.
@11 That too.
@5
Most Hospice care in the US is funded though Medicare. These fuckers are willing to cut off funding to people dying of cancer to score some narrow, temporary, political point with a handful of their base. They’re sociopaths that should be hung for treason.
Militarizing and Canonizing your Police Department is a direct path to total corruption of the system. I wonder how long it’ll be before someone takes real offense to these intrusions and makes a point of reacting to them in extremis?
This sort of shit is going on all over the country.
What happened during the Johnson Years you leftist historical morons? Who escalated the war? Johnson did! Did you morons forget the Tet Offensive? Of course you did!
Nixon got us out of Vietnam cuz of morons like John Effin Kerry making comments before a DUMMOCRAPT controlled Congress. Who was president on December 2, 1968 when John Effin Kerry was “wounded”? Then there were all the 1960s war protests that Johnson ignored but Nixon had to deal with. Y’all forgot the 1968 DUMMOCRAPT Convention in Chicago? Really? Well here is John Effin KErry’s “account”
And what was the battle of Khe Sahn?
Then there is Hill 881…
The other two occurred in 1969 after Johnson’s sadministration created FireBase 6. Hamburger Hill was in 1969.
It’s so sad to see these historical morons on HA. Puddy isn’t surprised. DUMMOCRAPTS always try to rewrite historical facts vs. reading and making sure not to repeat the errors of history!
But you see libtards… this MAN is Puddy’s hero, while you all worship at the feet of Roger SENILE DUMBASS and LUNATIC Wabbit!
zzzzZZZZzzzz.. WRONG..
Nixon ordered the first troop withdrawl in JULY 1969.. U.S. personell at the time numbered 540,000. He followed up in December of that year..
By the end of 1970, U.S. personell numbers were down to 335,000..
Kerry didn’t testify before Congress until April 22, 1971!
Nixon waged plenty of war in Vietnam you dumbass all during his first term and well into his second.. He bombed the crap out of North Vietnam after he won re-election..
Wow what an influence Kerry had on that Christmas bombing!
[Deleted — see HA Comment Policy]
Puddy…Unless you are a veteran of the Vietnam conflict and have something useful to add, I would appreciate your limiting your comments to other subjects about which your are pathetically ignorant such as climate change, religion, culture and politics. Most of those who served would prefer not to be used as fodder in your infantile flame wars. It’s bad enough that we live everyday with the experiences. So please, shut the fuck up.
He took your biggest point and blew it out of the water – essentially hollowed out your whole ranting, deluded post.
What a waste of good oxygen.
He really seems more unhinged lately.
Of course, this latest puddybigot flame war obscures the original points, as they often do, made by RR and deathfrogg…regarding ‘defense’ budgets, those used for funnelling billions of dollars to cronies, and those (much smaller) that actually purchase the goods and material and salaries that to to a bona fide justified military effort.
I don’t think I’ve ever read on these threads a post by puddybigot that actually was civil, and that added information or nuance or analysis to a grown up conversation.
McConnell doesn’t want a shutdown. Cantor doesn’t. Boehner doesn’t.
As far as governance goes, the GOP leaders who actually run the show don’t want a shutdown, and in fact argue specifically against it.
I don’t doubt that fringes of the GOP like to talk about it, but it’s as realistic as, say, wholesale Democrat embrace of Dennis Kucinich’s foreign policy ideas would have been a few years ago. Plenty of ridicule from the other side, and a fair amount of quiet ridicule from his own.
Slow news day, I guess.
@ 21
Paul Ryan doesn’t want a shutdown.
Rand Paul has actually authored a Shutdown Prevention Act:
http://www.paul.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=332380
(although it also would temporarily defund Obamacare, full disclosure).
There might be a couple of 2016 presidential wannabe types who support the concept in principle. But they wouldn’t include Chris Christie or Jeb Bush. And given the quality of the 2008 Democrat wannabe crowd – remember disgraced John Edwards and Chris Dodd? – it would be straining credibility to tar the whole GOP crowd with the thoughts of a fringe candidate. Of course, RR and YLB strain credibility with each comment they make, so no stopping them in this regard.
Amongst those who run the show on the GOP side, there’s no work toward shutdown and a lot of activity to prevent it from happening.
Notice the case-study in cheapshotBob’s patented false-equivalnce, this time wrapped around a pathetic bit of apologetics in the service of trying to throw the Teahaddists under the bus.
Where puddybigot has “BENGGGHHHAAAAZZZZIIIII!!!”, cheapshot has “JOHN EDWARDS!!”
As if John Edwards, louse the he is, were crazy and apocalyptic like Louie Gohmert or Heritage Action or Steve King.
These people, cheapshot included, have constructed a parallel universe, one in which they’re victims, one in which no crackpot conservative conspiracy is too crazy, one in which only partisan-sourced information is valid, one in which destroying the Republic is favored over letting ‘those people’ have any nice things.
This is the sociopathic conservative id on full display, and the fact that cheapshot is trying to backpedal and claim it’s only ‘the fringe’ is both laughably pathetic, and an insight into the fact that he knows it’s crazy/greedy/wrong.
@ 23
Somewhere around 240 GOP representatives. 45 Senators.
None of the leadership supports a shutdown. A couple of senators – Cruz, Lee – seem to be talking about it. A handful of representatives, maybe a dozen (haven’t seen a count).
GOP leaders? Zilch.
All I pointed out, Lib Sci is that this thread topic is about GOP fringe. Dem fringe has had its own problems. Cynthia McKinney much?
When we start tickling the shutdown dragon’s tail, feel free to bring it up again. Otherwise, its misdirection.
Keeps us talking about stupid shit rather than about more salient topics, like this:
Obama’s Economic Approval Slips to 35%
August 15, 2013
http://www.gallup.com/poll/163.....slips.aspx
Oh. Since Darryl’s worried about our federal credit rating, it might be notable that Obama’s approval on his handling of the federal deficit is at 26% in that poll – lowest of any polled question.
@24
Cynthia McKinney??!!
HAHAHA – you really are pulling out all the false equivalence stops, aren’t you, cheapshot?
I guess that’s to be expected, as the dutiful Rove acolyte that you are. You must be really frightened of what you and your ‘ilk’ have wrought.
Regarding Boehner and his House Republican caucus…
Here’s Heritage (h/t WaPo), leading light of the right ‘intelligensia’ whipping timid Republican House members to defund Obamacare, beating them about the head with a pool straight from the echo chamber of gerrymandered Republican districts!
No, no, cheapshot – you’re right, it’s just the ‘fringe’!
It seems though, that the ‘fringe’ is in charge of your team.
More ‘fringe‘!!
That would be FoxNEWS having the left-ward drift and decline!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!
@ 25
Awkward, indeed.
Obama Should Allow Government Shutdown If Sequestration Continues, Top House Dem Says
Rep. Rob Andrews (D-N.J.), the co-chair of the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, said that he hadn’t blithely come to the conclusion that this type of political standoff was necessary. Rather, it was talks with victims of the spending cuts and a new Congressional Budget Office study showing that up to 1.6 million jobs would be at risk next year if sequestration continued that convinced him a government shutdown threat was worth it.
“I think the president should draw that line in the sand,” Andrews told The Huffington Post in an interview. “I think it would create clarity, that our side wants to have a no-drama, sensible economic policy and that they want drama. So let’s have the fight.”
“Here is my instinctive feeling about this,” he said. “Republicans generally win fights over taxes and spending, that’s their turf. We win fights about jobs. So how this fight is framed will affect the outcome.”
“I’m not eager to do it. There is no honor in shutting the government down,” Andrews said. “But I would like to make that case strongly and see how far we can go.”
It’s fairly bold for a member of the president’s own party to advocate shutting down the government. It also creates a bit of an awkward situation, as Democrats attack Republicans for threatening a shutdown in their quest to defund the president’s health care law.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....59331.html
Shutting down the government over something Dems want is good. Shutting down the government over something the GOP wants is bad. That about sum it up, Lib Sci?
Umm….Bob,
Not sure if your reading comprehension is suffering from a bad case of Wingnutitis or whether you just don’t bother reading the words and stuff in the post before you began spewing, but most of what I wrote was about Republican extremism in the form of refusing to raise the debt ceiling and how that would be an even greater act of violence against the United States by the Republicans in Congress.
So, your bullshit about how GOP leaders don’t want a shutdown (which, I essentially mention in the post) is little more than ignorant diversion.
Please…be smarter. I expect much better from you.
But I do grant you that.
Because it gives people like you, the ability to scream about false equivalents.
How are all those republican jobs bills working out for yah?
Bob @ 27,
“Shutting down the government over something Dems want is good. Shutting down the government over something the GOP wants is bad.”
No, you idiot. This is actually news because Andrews is the exception, and that is surprising. You don’t find many (if any) Democrats that embrace his position.
And you don’t find Democratic organizations doing polls showing that a shutdown engineered by the Democrats would be a net benefit for Democrats.
And, again, the post only leads with the example of a G.O.P. group encouraging a shutdown because it would be a net benefit to Republicans (not the country, which would take a hit). The majority of the post is about Republicans threatening to force the U.S. to default on its loans–that’s likely worse than a shutdown.
GOP will refuse to raise the debt ceiling. Except that debt ceiling keeps being raised, doesn’t it?
All this posturing, nothing new about it, hasn’t changed the fact that it’s been half a generation since the government was shut down. Despite the S&P downgrade in 2011 interest rates are a little lower now than they were two years ago when the downgrade occurred, and the GOP is rightly scared shitless about another blowback effect if they shut it down this time around.
The GOP won’t get its desired tax cut and Obama won’t get his desired tax increase. We’ll perpetuate the brinksmanship but after all the bluster we’ll still move forward, and the national debt will still grow. The sequester taught both sides a lesson. And it’s helping slow the rate of national debt growth. But it’s still growing and it’s partly because the GOP is complicit.
This is where we’re stuck. Government will continue to dysfunction. There will be deals here and there but no grand bargain. Boehner and Obama will play golf again. Small, incremental things will get done. Both side will claim credit and assign blame, as has always occurred.
Last time the government shut down, Clinton won. I don’t think the argument that Obama wouldn’t win if it’s shut down again is a good one. Clearly, at least to me, the GOP leadership people that count think the same.
@31. Government will continue to dysfunction.
What programs that you benifit from, that you use, do you want cut to help balence the national debt?
Do you work for the goverment as contractor? Can the government find someone cheaper than you or stop doing that work all together to help balence the national debt?
@ 32
Those are off-topic questions, aren’t they?
Ask somewhere else.
Bob @ 31,
Sorry, but your response is idiotic.
There is one party that has shown a willingness to commit violence against the U.S. so long as their party gets an advantage out of it. There is ONE party that has made (and admitted to making) “obstruct Obama (even if it hurts America)” their priority.
You cannot bullshit your way out of the fundamental fact that defaulting on your debt is risky and, quite likely, harmful.
Your attempts to spin this as some kind of equivalency make you look like a fool.
@ 34
Violence against the US? Really, Darryl?
I would agree that a two-month or so shutdown of the US government, which IIRC is about how long it would take before all of the short-term money moves and other sleight-of-hand maneuvers by Treasury and Fed are depleted and we truly cannot pay our bills, would be bad. Very bad, possibly.
Dire predictions presaged the sequester, too. And turned out not to come to pass.
The political pressure of a shutdown is far more acute than the financial pressure. The end of any shutdown would be due to political considerations as well, and not because of sustained and lasting damage to the nation’s economy and creditworthiness.
This isn’t fiscal Armageddon we’re talking about. It’s the same song and dance we’ve done seemingly every time a debt limit increase is necessary. This time the guys who are talking about it are guys who don’t really have an ability to actually cause it. The guys at the top of the GOP pecking order don’t want it and will work to prevent it.
Please don’t pass off the idea that the GOP makes decisions out of political considerations while Dems don’t. “Never let a crisis go to waste.” isn’t attributed to a Republican.
Bob,
“Violence against the US? Really, Darryl?”
Yes…willfully shutting down the government or intentionally forcing a debt default is nothing less than an act of violence.
“Please don’t pass off the idea that the GOP makes decisions out of political considerations while Dems don’t.
Sure…but that isn’t my point. Both parties make decisions that benefit their party. Business as usual.
What I am pointing out is something more extreme. Republicans have, over the last 5 years, made decisions that not only benefit their party but, at the same time, knowingly inflict harm on the U.S. That is what is qualitatively different.
wharfrat spews: Nothing useful.
1) Obummer didn’t die and make you king.
2) 2 Cousins fought in Vietnam
3) Typical of a DUMMOCRAPT to tell others how to think and act
4) EPIC FAYLE
BTW Libtard SCHMUCKO, Puddy’s point was not “blown out of the water” by HA’s unemployed ASSHOLE moron at 5:15AM. Au contraire, the major troop draw down and pull out occurred after Kerry’s speech. Chronological failure again!
DUMMOCRAPTS pushed through the Budget Control Act of 2011. Now they don’t want to live by what they passed. Harry Reid is for a government shutdown that doesn’t increase spending…
It’s the DUMMOCRAPTS who want to bust the budget with higher spending and raise taxes and raise the debt ceiling against the S&P outlook.
ZzzzzzZzzzZzzzz…..
AT LEAST, 205,000 troops were pulled from Vietnam BEFORE Kerry said anything to Congress. A number comparable to the current population of Montgomery, AL…
According to the quoted idiot, there’s nothing “major” about that..
@39 I’m perfectly happy to live with the sequester. The only defense stock I own is an Israeli company.
@15 “Nixon got us out of Vietnam cuz of morons like John Effin Kerry making comments before a DUMMOCRAPT controlled Congress.”
Wow. Just fucking wow. As someone who was actually there, that’s all I can say about this comment.