Act One of Kabuki Theater Appears to Be Over

at least for the time being. These idiots in Congress will kick the "crisis" down the road until Obama says we must gut Social Security and Medicare to avert a crisis.

All the while, of course, giving more handouts to the crooks who trashed the economy in the first place.

The sudden flurry of action in Congress follows weeks of gridlock in the nation’s capital that prompted a prolonged government shutdown for the first time since the mid-1990s.

The theatrics culminated on Tuesday, when House Republicans failed to rally around an alternative to the emerging Senate plan floated by Boehner and his lieutenants as conservatives balked at the proposal. The ordeal laid bare many of the dividing lines that have plagued the House GOP for the past two and a half years, and ceded leverage in the spending fight to the Senate and Democrats who control that chamber.

People out here in the real world know this is all a bunch of bullshit, but they seem at their wit's end to know what to do to correct the problem.

You KNOW Where This is Headed

The American people are going to get screwed over big time because both political parties in D.C. and that useless president are hellbent on "austerity." They don't work for us, and this "crisis" is just a bunch of kabuki theater bullshit.

You get the GOP weirdos like Ted Cruz or whatever the hell the Canadian's name is going further and further into insane asylum territory, and we are supposed to be terrified of that. In the meantime we have sellouts like Reid and Obama, the latter especially since he is a fraud anyway, who will look sane but still do the gangsters' bidding. The gangsters, of course, are those who control both political parties.

A day that was supposed to bring Washington to the edge of resolving the fiscal showdown instead seemed to bring chaos and retrenching. And a bitter fight that had begun over stripping money from the president’s signature health care law had essentially descended in the House into one over whether lawmakers and their staff members would pay the full cost of their health insurance premiums, unlike most workers at American companies, and how to restrict the administration from using flexibility to extend the debt limit beyond a fixed deadline.

Even so, the House speaker, John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio, and his leadership team failed in repeated, daylong attempts to bring their troops behind any bill that would reopen the government and extend the Treasury’s debt limit on terms significantly reduced from their original push against funding for the health care law. The House’s hard-core conservatives and some more pragmatic Republicans were nearing open revolt, and the leadership was forced twice to back away from proposals it had floated, the second time sending lawmakers home for the night to await a decision on how to proceed Wednesday.

This group of dirtbags work so goddamned hard they are coming to work tomorrow at noon EDT, probably after getting drunk at the Georgetown cocktail parties and carousing with women and men not their spouses. Then they can sleep in for a few hours before dragging themselves in to "work."

I am old enough to remember when Congress was actually a sane political body. Now it's just as worthless as tits on a boar (or bore or boor--all apply equally).

Of course these morons and crooks don't give a rat's ass about how this fake crisis is impacting millions upon millions of lives, and not just the federal workers.

The Real Question in This Manufactured Crisis is Whether He Can Be Trusted

I say emphatically "no" because he has a history of "caving" to the opposition in some egotistical attempt to be a "transformative" president, i.e., nothing but a goddamned sellout and a fake put in there to fuck the rest of us over.

I will say he is not the sharpest knife in the drawer despite or because of his Ivy League pedigree.

Reich:

This time, though, Obama didn’t cave — at least, not yet.

The government is shuttered and the nation is on the verge of defaulting on its debts. But public opinion has turned sharply against the Republican Party. And the GOP’s corporate and Wall Street backers are threatening to de-fund it.

Suddenly the Republicans are acting like the school-yard bully who terrorized the playground but finally got punched in the face. They’re in shock. They’re humiliated. They’re trying to come up with ways of saving face.

We will see. The ball is in Bend Over Barry's court.

I still say it is nothing but a bunch of political theater designed to force "austerity" down the throats of the American people.

I hope I am wrong, but I am rarely wrong when it comes to this piece of shit of a president.

Frankenstein: Version 2013

It looks like the Koch brothers are trying to distance themselves from the fascist movement they created and funded all of these years.

Despite pleas from outfits like the Chamber of Commerce to stop the movement toward default, the Tea Party idiots continue on their reckless course. Whether Obama sells the country down the river to appease these idiots remains to be seen.

It would be funny in a way if the country did default, the economy completely tanked, and the Kochs and their ilk went completely broke.

Snip:

Like others in the business community, the Kochs appear to believe that the push to defund Obamacare is a doomed and destructive distraction and that the Republican-led House should refocus on fiscal issues. A bigger fiscal deal is the goal House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan pushed in a pair of op-eds Wednesday. But it's adamantly opposed by many conservative activists who still see defunding as achievable, and who see the threat of default not as a looming calamity but as a politically motivated ruse. It's this insistence that Obamacare be gutted at all costs, backed by the archconservative faction in the House, that's keeping the shutdown from ending.

The bigger picture here is the continuing splintering of the mainline GOP from its restive, angry base. Many in the Republican establishment hailed the Tea Party when it seemed like merely a source of grassroots enthusiasm for GOP politicians. But now it has turned on them, and even the Koch brothers find they are powerless to stop it.

We Have People Who HATE Our System of Government

and want to drown the whole goddamned thing in a bathtub, to use Grover Norquist's infamous phrase, but without the "goddamned":



link

Sedition is What This Is

There is no other word to describe the shutdown in D.C., not to mention the possibility of the government defaulting.

The Kochs, of course, are behind this shit:

The current budget brinkmanship is just the latest development in a well-financed, broad-based assault on the health law, Mr. Obama’s signature legislative initiative. Groups like Tea Party Patriots, Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks are all immersed in the fight, as is Club for Growth, a business-backed nonprofit organization. Some, like Generation Opportunity and Young Americans for Liberty, both aimed at young adults, are upstarts. Heritage Action is new, too, founded in 2010 to advance the policy prescriptions of its sister group, the Heritage Foundation.

The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have been deeply involved with financing the overall effort. A group linked to the Kochs, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, disbursed more than $200 million last year to nonprofit organizations involved in the fight. Included was $5 million to Generation Opportunity, which created a buzz last month with an Internet advertisement showing a menacing Uncle Sam figure popping up between a woman’s legs during a gynecological exam.

When are those two going to be charged with sedition against the United States? They are as anti-American as anybody can get.

From a local point of view, my representative Greg Walden is probably cooked for telling the truth.

Or maybe not. The district is almost as wingnutty as the second congressional district in Nevada.

Time Will Tell Whether This Shutdown Has ANYTHING to Do With ACA,

or whether it is just posturing in anticipation of 2014, or whether it is a diabolical plot by both political parties to foist "austerity" measures designed to fuck over the American people.

Obama is the real question mark here. He's sounding like a Democrat for once in his life over this shutdown, claiming he isn't going to negotiate with this gang of Koch thugs, but I just don't trust him at all.

I hope for the best, but I am bracing for the worst.

Krugman, like many observers, doesn't understand that much of the criticism of Obamacare isn't coming from the right (after all, it was a GOP scheme to begin with) but from the so-called "left" which says this law is corporate welfare and does little or nothing to help people obtain health care because the insurance is so unaffordable.

Call Me a Skeptic

You don't have to be a Trotskyite, as the people from WSWS are, to be highly suspicious of what our D.C. politicians are pulling with the shutdown business.

It all depends on how much of the country Obama is willing to throw under the proverbial bus to "make nice" with a gang of billionaire-backed fascists. I seriously doubt he will act like a real Democrat, not when Wall Street, etc. are bankrolling him.

Snip:

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported Thursday evening that Republican Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, has held meetings with senior House Republicans aimed at using the government funding crisis to revive earlier proposals for a “Grand Bargain” to cut social programs and slash corporate taxes and income taxes for the wealthy.

The Times wrote that the Republicans are discussing a “broad deficit reduction deal that would allow some increases to federal programs squeezed by the automatic cuts known as sequestration in exchange for long-term changes to programs like Medicare and Social Security. The package would most likely include instructions to try to move along efforts to simplify the tax code as well.”

We know the Republicans are assholes, but it's Obama who is the wild card because he has a lengthy history of not being trustworthy at all.

Etc.

If Arne hates it, it must be good.
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Everybody in the world knows about that motorcycle road rage incident in NYC. Goddamned thugs started the whole thing, and now they are whining that one of their own is permanently injured and trying to raise money for him.

There are a bunch more videos leading up to the altercation. Those assholes are dangerous.

It's also way too dangerous for cops to pursue these riders, since the "crotch rockets" can go very high speeds and are highly maneuverable. These so-called "stunt" groups are the latest in motorcycle "gang" activity though they are different from the gangs of old:

While these free-form, instant gangs may not be predisposed to violence, he said, a “mob mentality” can take over if they feel threatened, as happened in New York.

Mostly, what they want to do is tricks. “They are daredevil types into high-performance bikes,” he said, “a younger generation into the rush of high speeds and splitting lanes.”

And they want to do their tricks on public highways, with cameras rolling. Combine social media, YouTube and cheap, versatile handheld cameras, and you have a recipe for packs of bikers to assemble quickly, take over public streets and put the results on the Web for the world to see.

I don't know why some people were saying this group involved in Sunday's assault was "black." From what I could tell from the videos, it appeared to be racially diverse, as the article notes about these groups. What they have in common is they thrive driving shitty on busy highways and have the overwhelming desire to pull stunts that ought to get them killed.

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If Obama does that "Grand Bargain" shit, we will KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt this shutdown shit was ORCHESTRATED by both sides to force "austerity" measures on the American people.
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The Inmates Have Indeed Taken Over the Asylum

Naturally I am referring to those absolutely worthless, overpaid shits in Washington, D.C. Anybody who thinks a duly elected president is not "legitimate," is off the beam and most likely is a puppet of truly seditious people, i.e., David and Charles Koch.

I believe those two should be arrested, jailed, and their assets seized. They are truly dangerous, more than most because they have seemingly unlimited wealth and don't have any kind of conscience at all as to what they are doing to the United States.

King has been one of the most vocal opponents in his party to the GOP strategy of tying ObamaCare to the resolution to fund the government. He’s openly criticized Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who has led the defunding campaign, as a “fraud,” and on Monday sought to orchestrate a “moderate rebellion” in the House to continue funding the government.

King might sincerely believe this, or he might be engaging in some political gamesmanship himself.

I do believe this is nothing but a naked class war against everybody else, and that most "Democrats" in Congress (and the White House) are just posturing getting us prepared for the destruction of the country.

I don't trust Obama to do the right thing at all.

In those crises, as in the current shutdown, the most aggressive role was played by right-wing Republicans, who demanded even more extreme and rapid social cuts than those proposed by Obama and the Democrats. They set the tone, and, in the name of resolving a crisis situation, the Democrats adjusted their policies to accommodate the bulk of the Republican right’s agenda.

This time around, it will be no different. The Democrats have already begun the process, with House Democrats on Monday agreeing to cut $42 billion from their spending proposal and accept the Republicans’ lower level.

In a Rose Garden speech Tuesday, Obama signaled his readiness to work out a bipartisan agreement to “get our fiscal house in order over the long run”—a coded reference to historic attacks on Medicare and Social Security. With uninsured Americans standing behind him as photo-op props, the president shed crocodile tears for federal workers and others hit by the shutdown, while showing no inclination to end the shutdown any time soon.

If true, Obama is a dumb son of a bitch who ought to be kicked out of office himself.

A Picture Says a Billion Words

or is it turds?



For fun, here is the editorial:

Trying to bludgeon Obamacare out of existence is a perversion of the democratic process. And should the Republicans feel that their dangerous game-playing is rewarded, imagine how they will be emboldened when, just weeks from now, it comes time to raise the nation’s debt limit — in other words, to pay the nation’s bills, most of them racked up by previous Congresses and Presidents.

It once was a standard responsibility. It is fast becoming, like everything else, scorched earth.

Obama had it exactly right late Monday: “You don’t get to extract a ransom for doing your job.”

Again, this is a coup attempt, and it is supported and bankrolled by criminals.

The Kochs and Their Ilk Belong in Prison for Sedition

I am NOT joking about this. They are evil beyond belief, and they do NOT care about this country at all.

The biggest problem with this shutdown shit is Obama because Obama CANNOT be trusted to do the right thing. I fear him even more than the Kochs because he has repeatedly try to make nice with these criminals, these fascists, and you can't make nice with them.

Reich:

Their game plan is to not just to take over the Republican Party. It's to take over America. The showdown over the budget and the debt ceiling is a prelude to 2016, when they plan to run Texas Senator Ted Cruz for President. (Cruz, if you haven't noticed, is busily establishing his creds as the biggest flamer in Washington -- orchestrating not only the current extortion but also the purge of reasonable Republicans from the GOP.) Obama and the Democrats must not give in. They shouldn't even negotiate with extortionists. As I learned the hard way, giving in to bullies just encourages them to escalate their demands. The president gave in at the end of 2011 when Republican bullies threatened to go over the fiscal cliff and take the rest of the nation with them. At that time they demanded spending cuts. Now they want to repeal a law they detest. If we give in again, what's next? A coup d'etat?

Expect Obama to Cave

THAT is the point of the shutdown. The fascistic Republicans want major concessions in their insane drive to divest government support for an array of social programs that benefit people.

Can you IMAGINE Harry Truman capitulating to this extortion? FDR? LBJ?

The only reason Obama is open to this shit is because he is secretly one of the GOP anyway. That's why he was put in there by the elites.

Although the Republican leadership refused to drop its demand for a delay in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Democratic concession prefigured the way in which the government crisis will be used to shift the entire domestic agenda further to the right, increasing cuts in such basic programs as Food Stamps, Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

The shutdown will have a punishing impact on millions of workers and poor people. At the same time, the government functions considered essential by the corporate-financial elite will be largely unaffected. The uniformed military, the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Department of Homeland Security and the rest of the agencies involved in US imperialist aggression and subversion abroad and domestic spying and repression at home will be virtually unscathed.

It's increasingly obvious neither party gives a shit about the rest of us.

Time to Import Those Asian Giant Hornets to Capitol Hill

given how absolutely WORTHLESS these sons-of-bitches are, especially in the GOP. What is unfortunate about this shutdown shit is workers are going to be impacted, and ultimately the economy.

And for what? So they can politically posture against the Unaffordable Care Act that their right-wing buddies at the Heritage Foundation proposed and what their buddies in the health insurance industry WROTE.

They smell a "winner" in next year's elections once people are affected with the sticker shock of the ACA, and they are counting on that so-called "Democratic" president to capitulate like he almost always does.

Our political system is really on the ropes, on the verge of being knocked out, as a direct result of all of these years of having politicians being bought off by the elites to represent THEIR interests, not the 99.9 percent of voters.

As I have written before, the only pieces of major legislation coming out of Washington in the past thirty years that have been worth a shit for the American people were the Americans With Disabilities Act (written by Democratic senator Tom Harkin and signed by Republican president George I) and the Family Medical Leave Act, signed by President Clinton, which didn't go far enough but still was beneficial.

That's it. Just about everything else has been a complete sellout of the United States of America, soon to be the Untied States of America at the rate things are going.

The impact of a government shutdown would be imposed overwhelmingly on the working population. Some 95 percent of employees at the Department of Education would be furloughed, as would 92 percent of workers at the Department of Energy, while all of the department’s regulatory activity would come to a halt.

As long as these overstuffed buffoons in both political parties can still afford to go to the Georgetown cocktail parties, they don't give a shit about workers.

I am so sick of this kabuki theater nonsense.