The naked evil of that scourge called the Republican Party

Bullshit.

 

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You can quibble about the blame for the banking crisis. As you point out, netiher side has a completely clean hand in the matter. But it has been the Republicans in charge for the last eight years. And they were the ones responsible for SEC enforcement and bank regulation. And obviously they were asleep at the helm.

It was also Republicans who were spending with reckless abandon. It was the Republicans that doubled the national debt. It was the Republicans who went from a budget surplus to a 1.4 trillion annual deficit.

It was the Republicans who paid back their financial backers with huge subsidies...eg. Medicare Prescription Drug Deal. And it was the Republicans in the Senate who re-enforced this fiscal atrocity in 2005 by not letting it out of Senate Committee. In order to keep seniors from crossing the borders to get prescription drugs at affordable prices, the bill for prescription drugs is transfered to the Federal government and the government is forbidden by this act to negotiate price with the drug companies. The government must pay what ever the drug company asks for the drugs. How do you Republcans justify that as fiscally responsible or even reasonable?

 

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And Obama just added a trillion dollars of deficit spending to our tab with one single bill. Then he had the audacity to come out and hold a summit on fiscal discipline ? Not to mention that Obama's goal isn't to balance the budget, hell no, it's to cut the annual deficit to a half a trillion within four years. Boy, that's some real belt tightening.

I was opposed to the medicare prescription drug plan from the start, so I take no responsibility for it. Nevertheless, I'm sure that if the Democrats had designed the plan it would have been much more generous and, therefore, cost even more than the plan we have now.

PS This thread amounts to little more than juvenile name calling. Are the Republicans short sighted, self interested, stupid, incompetent and corrupt? Hell yes. They're politicians after all. But do they represent "naked evil"? If the Repubican party is naked evil, what adjectives do you have left for the Nazis? Or Stalin? Or Vlad the impaler? Or even John Wayne Gacy?

If we are, as a nation, to have any chance of fixing the mess we find ourselves in, we need to work together and not demonize the opposition. Maybe I'm just oversensitive (LOL), but calling the other side "naked evil" and a "scourge" is counterproductive at the very least.

 

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And if you listened to the Fed Chair today, you heard him say that the stimulus spending package was appropriate. As for the Medicare Prescription Drug bill, the Dems tried to curtial its costs in 2005 and the Republicans in the Senate nixed it...would not let it out of committee.

 

Almost all of righty reality is created by repetition of hypotheticals like that. They are each added to the hundreds of others, and constitute the substance of the worldview, replacing the more common fact and event basis. They are even sometimes remembered, later, as if they had happened.

We need a word for these things.

 

Oh, quit whining

This from someone who endorses the use of stupid phrases like "NObama", "Demorats", and "Fannie Freddie Fuck Up"? From someone who sees no problem with ridiculing another member's family? Who has no objection to inflammatory ridicule of social group names as long as they're "Muslems"?

Oh, poor fucking you. See these? They're the world's smallest violins, playing "My Heart Bleeds for You". In stereo.

There is a difference between the typical corruption of politicians and the extraordinary dishonesty of the Republican mainline. Then again, I long ago stopped expecting you to be capable of recognizing that.

Everybody has at least some evil in them. It's part of human nature. But the Republican mentality at this time is above and beyond that standard. And yes, the veils have fallen away, and their diminutive, flaccid pride is on parade right now.

Sick.

Which, of course, raises another issue. Remember that one of the things that makes me a liberal is my view on crime and punishment. I'm part of the faction in this world that opposes the death penalty, and thinks the prison system is a failure. Were I more conservative, I would condemn such fraud as Republicans wreak upon society as worthy of death. Were this not the United States of America, Republicans could expect to be taken out to the ditch and shot.

So just keep that in mind. I would prefer that your ilk have a positive impact on society. I would prefer you healthy, honest, and productive.

I admit that's a strange thing to hear from a Republican after being repeatedly accused of being a terrorist for years, hearing Obama accused of Communism during the election cycle, and attending conservatives who said stupid things like, "We have Obama replacing Che".

Why now? And does this appeal to working together mean anything more than bipartisan has meant in prior years coming from the mouth of a Republican? In other words, does it mean anything more than, "Give Republicans whatever they want"?

Glenn Greenwald has been up on his soapbox of late about bipartisanship, but his latest sermon includes an interesting statistical notion:

... the NYT released a new poll (.pdf) which included findings showing what Americans think about "bipartisanship" -- and it is the exact opposite of what harmony fetishists continuously claim about Americans' supposed desire for "bipartisanship." Consider, first, this question:

Which do you think should be a higher priority right now for Barack Obama -- working in a bipartisan way with the Republicans in Congress or sticking to the policies he promised he would during the campaign?

Working bipartisan way -- 39%; Sticking to policies - 56%​

By a 17 point-margin, Americans think it's more important that Obama "stick to his policies" than try to dilute them in order to attract Republican support in pursuit of "bipartisanship." It's not surprising that 39% want Obama to pursue bipartisanship. There are still many people who prefer Republican policies and naturally want Obama to embrace those policies in the name of "bipartisanship" -- but the group that wants that is in the clear minority. That's why Republicans lost so decisively in the last two elections. But even more revealing is this next question:

Which do you think should be a higher priority for Republicans in Congress right now -- working in a bipartisan way with Barack Obama or sticking to Republican policies?

Working bipartisan way - 79%; Sticking to policies: 17%​

That's actually an amusing result: a huge majority of Americans want Congressional Republicans to be "bipartisan," but don't want Obama to be. Overwhelmingly, then, Americans favor "bipartisanship" only to the extent that it means that Republicans support Democratic policies and abandon their own.​

So, yeah. We're willing to work together. But that doesn't mean catering to the GOP's every need anymore. It's time for your side of the aisle to get off its goddamn high horse and recognize that the emotional appeals for more of the same vapid bullshit that got us into this mess just isn't working.

The party wants to stick with its political principles? Fine, okay. But what would you suggest we call an agenda that would see this country ruined?

Yes, you are. If I told you what I honestly thought of Republicans right now, you'd just delete it.
____________________

Notes:

Greenwald, Glenn. "The 'Americans want bipartisanship' myth". Unclaimed Territory. February 24, 2009. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/24/bipartisanship/index.html

 

Bernanke's your defense of the bill? The same guy who said Fannie and Freddie were fine back in July 08? The same guy who said there was no housing bubble to burst back in 2005? And in March 2007, said the markets were working well?

 

It still has its relevance

Good point, considering the prevailing argument among economists is that the stimulus bill is too small to do the job.

Of course, given that Bernanke was wrong on those occasions, and that he said the stimulus was appropriate, I think that undermines the whining about how "Obama just added a trillion dollars of deficit spending to our tab with one single bill".

 

Please feel free to sort thru my posts and find a single instance of me using the term "Demorats", "Fannie Freddie Fuck Up", or any of the above. I may have misspelled Muslim once in a while, but no insult was intended. Spelling of Muslim terms seems to vary a lot. I've seen Qatar apelled many different ways, for instance, and have seen Muslim spelled many different ways as well.

My ilk, huh. It's hard to find common ground with someone who refers to my "ilk".

Are you incapable of having an honest, serious discussion? Why now? Because the country is tetering on the brink of destruction. That's why now. Political games were all well and good when times were good. They actually served the positive function of keeping the politicians busy with nonsense so they wouldn't have time to create too many problems. But now we need to get serious and try to hold things together before the entire country shakes itself apart.

But please feel free to continue playing the blame game and demonizing everyone to your right. Fiddle while Rome burns, Nero.

It's not surprising. Americans elected Obama and want to give him a chance to enact his policies and see what happens. That's natural.

What I'm talking about is simply working together to the extent that's possible and not wasting time calling each other names or trying to assign blame. Even you and I occasionally agree on things., but we can't uncover those areas of common ground when you're constantly calling me (and my ilk) evil and worthy of being shot. Working together simply means having an honest discusion and trying to find areas both sides agree on rather than engaging in witch hunts and toxic rhetoric that completely polarizes everyone.

As the Gipper said, there you go again.

 

Except that they didn't. Otherwise how did we end up on the brink of destruction? We need the government to spend its time actually doing the job it's supposed to be doing.

And that requires, in this particular instance, overruling a segment of the polity that systematically created the crisis we find ourselves in, and who refuse to change course and cooperate in fixing the mess (and, furthermore, shows zero hesitation about exploiting this issue for cynical partisan gain). Fortunately, our system of government has found the serendipity to punish said polity for their bad ideas and low character by placing them firmly in the minority, where they can no longer obstruct positive changes that conflict with their ideology and narrow interests.

Helping the Republicans save face or feel good about themselves is not on the agenda. Responsibility is a bitch like that. Something Republicans will have yet another chance to learn in a bit less than 2 years' time, if they overplay their hands opposing a stimulus bill that is overwhelmingly viewed as a necessary (if painful) remedy for problems they created.

It's not possible to work together in a productive manner, since the remaining Republicans are terrified of primary challenges from the right, and the party leadership is exploiting this to consolidate party discipline.

Fortunately, it's not necessary to work with these dead-enders to enact legislation, as the electorate has recently driven them from the halls of power in recognition of their dysfunction and bankruptcy. Everything can, and will, be done over their objections, not just in terms of votes in Congress but in terms of national public support. And so the "brink of destruction" we find ourselves on provides no incentive to buckle down and reach across the aisle in order to mount a response. Quite the opposite, in fact.

 

All the point does is make irrelevant Bernanke's approval of the plan, it doesn't imply any particular viable alternative. Thus, neither I who thinks we shouldn't have a stimulus bill at all nor others who think the bill should be doubled can use it as a leg to stand on. And the whining is apropos so long as the whiner complained about and argued against prior deficit spending (aka not most Republicans of the Reagan and Cheney 'deficits don't matter' stripe).

 

Oh, poor you

Okay, okay, I just have to admit that I absolutely adore that line from you.

As if posting is your only relationship to the site.

Yeah, whatever. We've discussed this before. Are you that forgetful, or just playing to the gallery?

It's a perfectly good word.

Then again, for my part, it's hard to find common ground with the dishonest.

I am serious, sir. Tell you what, head on back over to your plea for a serious discussion about left and right. There you'll find my long-term sentiments about the question. This thread? Well, frankly, I've had just about enough of shameless conservative bullshit.

Some of us would have liked to have a serious discussion, see a coming together of disparate factions in this country, back when the question was trashing our prestige, spending billions on a fraudulent war, and endorsing torture. But, no, your fellow conservatives decided those who disagreed with them were terrorists.

Here's a novel theory: Why not elect politicians who can create positive outcomes instead of problems? Unfortunately, the Atwater and Rove schools have proven that if people want to sink so low, we can. The whole "win at any cost" philosophy of capitalism is just as bad for people when applied to politics. Good show, guys.

Well, then get on the horn to your party and tell them to quit with the bullshit.

Pathetic. It's not the Democrats who look at the mess our capitalist zeal gets us into and say, "The only solution is more of the same that we got here. If you don't do that, we hope you fail!"

That would be nice. Tell your party to give it a try for once.

Yes, we do occasionally agree on things. But right now I'm furious at the conservative establishment in general, and you're determined to take it personally.

And as to being worthy of being shot? Like I said, and as you failed to understand before, that's if I was more conservative. But I'm not. That's if this was not the United States of America. But it is.

You know, to the one, it's always a strange thing to me how when politics are at stake, so many people throw out their reading comprehension. To the other, Trotskyist sympathizer Steven Brust once said that he doesn't like to talk about politics because politics turns him into an asshole. I think there's a bit of truth to that for most people. And that includes me. I'm aware of the atmosphere of tantrum about this thread, and probably even more than you.

Indeed, you remind me of my father—years ago—in a certain way. When I would get frustrated about executives laying off workers because the company didn't have the money to keep them employed, and then turn around and give themselves bonuses equaling more than it would have taken to keep those workers, my dad would get all insulted and say, "But I'm a businessman, and when you say those things, it hurts me."

The problem with that was that he didn't behave the way those other businessmen did, but he was also blind to their conduct. He maintained this bizarre myth of the noble businessman. Starting with a betrayal by his business partner, that myth started unraveling. He spent years hiding out on his boat, trying to figure out what had happened, and by the time we went through the whole Enron and Global Crossings debacle (and Tyco International, and others, as well), he finally realized that he had been clinging blindly to a myth. I know I've told this story before.

But you're clinging to this myth of the noble conservative, and while there are—like businessmen—certainly noble folk among you, your blind adherence to fantasy compels you to take it personally when people are furious at what your party does. Apparently, people can't be pissed off at Republicans without you taking it as a personal insult. The GOP is more than just you, sir.

Republicans are completely out of control. Your new party boss just pulled a stunt that was morbidly hilarious. Or, as Dan Savage put it, "New head of GOP makes good on promise to reach out to gay voters ... by calling civil unions 'crazy' and insisting that excluding gay people from the institution of marriage was a 'founding value of this country'."

This is the kind of shit I'm talking about. Your party actually went and did it. It dressed up in blackface. I mean, holy fucking shit, dude. I really hoped the election of Michael Steele as Party Chairman was for his merits as a politician, leader, and human being. But apparently it's just cosmetic.

And, yeah, I kind of wonder, "Do they really think people won't notice?"

I mean, it's actually funny insofar as I'd rather laugh than scream, but come on. If that's the kind of kind of reaching out the GOP is up to, there really is no common ground.

(Interestingly, Steele's comments about a week after a conservative PAC called on the RNC to alienate the Log Cabin Republcians.)

There's also the contemptuous Sen. Kit Bond, who last week put out a press release celebrating the Senate's unanimous adoption of his amendment to the stimulus package. And then he voted against the package. And then he went on the road in his state to take credit for what he'd done for Missouri.

And then there's Rush Limbaugh, whose "I hope he fails" outburst would be meaningless except for the Republican vote (less three in the Senate) against the stimulus package. Something about coming together comes to mind. But, no. Instead they're calling for more of the same shit that got us into this mess and playing their usual politics.

The laundry list is growing almost daily. In truth, barring a couple of exceptions, I'd prefer the GOP was more like you. But those exceptions are telling. Torture, for instance. We have to? Who the fuck forced us to torture people?

Let me know when your party decides to get honest. In the meantime, don't insult the rest of us by pretending the only way to have a serious discussion is to never get upset about the bullshit Republicans are shoveling at the country. You have your serious discussion going on. And, certainly, I'm game for it. But I'm not going to smile all pretty and pretend there's nothing infuriating going on just to placate your goddamn ego.

We've been through this before, sir. The worst insult you've ever seen that didn't involve profanity? Remember that?

And, yes. The Republican Party right now is a cancer on humanity. The world would be better off without them.

I can't change the GOP's behavior. Only Republicans can do that.
_____________________

Notes:

Savage, Dan. "New Head of GOP Makes Good On Promise to Reach Out to Gay Voters...". Slog. February 24, 2009. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2009/02/24/new_head_of_gop_males_good_on

Holden, Dominic. "Really, Who Doesn’t Hate Log Cabin Republicans?" Slog. February 17, 2009. http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2009/02/17/really_who_doesn_t_hate_log

"Bond: We Must Invest in Affordable Housing for Needy Families, Create Jobs Now". Office of Senator Kit Bond. February 18, 2009. http://bond.senate.gov/public/index...5-57de-f77b-369272e6491f&Region_id=&Issue_id=

 

The Republicans are exploiting the issue for cynical partisan gain? Bullshit. May I quote White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel:

"Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before."​

And did they ever. They put together a wish list of every pork project every Democrat living or dead has ever even thought of for the past forty years. Then Obama told us the world would end if the bill wasn't passed immediately, there wasn't even time to read it! And they rammed the 1200 page monstosity thru. And you have the gall to claim it's the Republicans who used the crisis for cynical partisan gain? Give me a break.

Fine. Let Obama and the Democrats take all the "credit" for these wonderful measures he's enacting. We'll see who's a dead ender come the next election.

 

The fed chair did get off to a rocky start. But he has been on his game for the last six months...looking good.

 

Yes. They are opposing a bill that they all want to pass, knowing that it will pass over their objections because everyone agrees that it's sorely needed. The idea is that if the stimulus works, they will say that their "principled objections" made it even better, and if it doesn't, they'll say "I told you so." There is no genuine concern over the fate of the country as a whole, or courage to take part in the process in a substantiative way. There is only the cynical calculation of narrow, short-term political gains.

Which is okay. The Republican Party currently faces a hard choice between redefining itself as a viable national party, or sticking to their guns and consolodating. Which would leave them a marginalized regional party, probably bound for disappearance. Not an enviable position, but one with the advantage of finally putting a clear choice between short-term gains and long-term health before the Republicans.

Last I checked, pork was a bipartisan obsession. But more to the point, do you have even the slightest idea of what a "stimulus package" is, or how it works? How is one supposed to cooperate in a functional, bipartisan way with people who think that a stimulus bill shouldn't contain any spending, and instead the government should just defund itself and collapse?

Strong words directed at a President with a ~70% approval rating, coming from a defender of a Party that created the current crisis, has no solution for it, and is obstructing those who do with craven indifference towards the public good. But then, that's the luxury of being a minority party: you can let the other guys deal with actually running the country, and all you have to do is sit back and pretend that you have better ideas, or that you oppose the majority for some reason besides the fact that you aren't in it.

 

An alternative approach, only slightly better

Or they can do what the Democrats did, which was bitch and moan and give over damn near everything the majority wanted.

Not that it's a good alternative, but the difference between then and now is that if the GOP did that, things might actually get better.

 

Bullshit again. Even the CBO says the "stimulus" bill will do more harm than good over the long term. Assuming our mounting debt (mounting ever more quickly owing to this "stimulus") doesn't cause our currency to collapse; we'll be paying interest on this "stimulus" forever. The tiny bit of temporary economic gain from this spending is far outweighed by the long term ill effects.

We are a two party system. The electoral college pretty much insures that will always be the case. The Republican party isn't going anywhere. It's not as if the public is in love with the Democratic party, it's simply that they were tired of the Republicans and had no where else to turn but the Democrats. Soon, they'll tire of the Democrats and run back to the loving arms of the Republicans.

Did the US government discover some magic goose that lays golden eggs it can use to finance this stimulus? Or is it entirely financed by increasing debt? Debt that we'll be paying interest on for eternity. What's the interest on a trillion dollars? And what happens when China finally decided to stop financing our deficit spending? What happens when our credit status is downgraded and the interest on those trillions of dollars of debt goes thru the roof? Or everyone realizes the US government is in so deep it's never going to pay off its debts and decides to get out of the dollar while they can? Because that's what Obama's policies are moving us towards. A complete collapse of the monetary system.

Oh, Obama is so popular, did you know that Bush had a higher approval rating at this point in his presidency?

 

What don't the liberals understand about the fact that the Democrats are spending money we don't have at a exponential rate that out strips any thing the Repubs have done with Democratic support for the last 8 years, if it spent money on social programs in the last 8 years, the Democrats were for it, they also helped pass every spending bill for the war on terror, so again, Obama SOSDDDD.

Same Old Shit, Different Democrat, Different Day.

 

Let's see, GW's last Federal budget was 2.6 trillion, the budget just introduced by Obama ask for 3.55 Trillion Dollars, and that doesn't include the latest Bail Out Money.

So what is the deficit going to look like under Obama for the first year? well for starters, $950 billion in new spending, on top of $800 billion Stimulus Package so far, so that is 1.7 Trillion, not counting interest on the Stimulus Package, and deficit spending.

Plus we have been promised another Stimulus by Mid Summer, that already looks to be about another $400 Billion dollars.

And the Democrats were the ones screaming about deficit spending under GW?

 

No, the bill includes lots of Republican wish list tax cuts, and fails to include rehabilitiation of the W-era deficit-ballooning tax setup, and omits lots of pork that has been proposed over the years by Dems (the pork desired by Reps have ing been earmarked in to past bills).

No, it doesn't. That's only under certain assumptions, unlikely ones.

No, he didn't. http://www.hist.umn.edu/~ruggles/Approval.htm