Friday Open Thread

 

"Don't Worry About the Government" - Talking Heads

I see the states, across this big nation
I see the laws made in Washington, D.C.
I think of the ones I consider my favorites
I think of the people that are working for me

Some civil servants are just like my loved ones
They work so hard and they try to be strong

This song kind of picked itself.

- I was furious to hear a report on Marketplace in which the reporter kept claiming that the problem was that the "Tea Party Caucus" couldn't just go along with business as usual -- it needed to have bigger cuts.  The actual story is that the right wing crazies -- who are all only distinguishable by degree -- are not only insisting on draconian cuts, but they are insisting on capitulation on virtually every social issue out there, especially family planning.  The zombie lie that tea partiers don't care about social issues is maddening.  It's what they care most about.  Really.

- Very disheartening news on the vote count in Wisconsin.  And just a tad suspicious sounding as well.  As Steve Benen notes, can you imagine what Fox News would be like this morning if the shoe were on the other foot?   

- As oddjob pointed out in a thread below, you would really have a hard time overstating just how retrograde are the views of huge chunks of the Republican constituency. 

- One additional thought since I posted: In any normal political world, wouldn't John Boehner be taking the deal, declaring victory, and crowing about his accomplishment?  Instead, you've got upside down world, where a bunch of freshmen Republican House members are controlling their own speaker, the President, and the Senate.  It's pretty amazing what you can accomplish when you just don't give a fuck about governance or anything else.  But contra the Beltway pundits, there is nothing "adult" or "serious" about it.          

Jesus, what other horrible things are happening?

Comments

[Mandos]

The vote count biz is megafuriating and yes, very very suspicious.

[Sir Charles]

Mandos,

As I said below -- they really can't be that brazen, can they? Because that would take some serious balls.

I guess we'll see what the day brings. Very discouraging stuff. An incredible come down really.

[Stephen]

As I said below -- they really can't be that brazen, can they? Because that would take some serious balls.

Nah, it doesn't take much courage, because they know they'll get away with it. Walker gave the no-good, drunk son of a campaign contributor an $81,000/yr job supervising 76 people, and Sen. Hopper's mistress got something like a 35% raise just for being willing to fuck a nasty old white dude. I'll admit that anyone willing to go to bed with a Republican is due something, just not from taxpayers.

Hell, Walker also set it up so he could sell of WI's power plants to the Koch brothers with no oversight. He's utterly crooked, and the reason so many conservative politicians are so crooked is because so many conservatives are crooked. As a movement, they are so convinced of their righteousness that they justify anything and everything in service of their goals. So yeah, there is no doubt in my mind that these votes are completely fraudulent, and that the people knowingly committing this fraud will get away with it, put their crooked judge in place and then go to church on Sunday.

When Phill Kline was appt DA in my county a few years back (to get revenge on all the libs who voted for his opponent for state AG), I was told by a GOP precinct captain that over half the votes cast for him in the meeting were by proxy; a handful of precinct captains went around to others who were known to not be fond of Kline and were BS'd into believing that their votes wouldn't be cast for him. "Hey, you know me, I'll vote the way you would," said over and over. Then they went and installed Kline. They screwed over their colleagues, their friends, because everything they do is excused by the righteousness of their cause.

[oddjob]

In any normal political world, wouldn't John Boehner be taking the deal, declaring victory, and crowing about his accomplishment?

Of course!

[oddjob]

everything they do is excused by the righteousness of their cause

I am reminded of a certain infamous quote:

"If the president does it, that means it's legal."

[MR Bill]

Well, the big world if full of suckage. The Wisconsin Judicial election news is, well, sad, and suspicious..
The idiocy of the Republicans in the House is matched by their mendacity, and Obama's veto threat gives me some hope.
The Georgia Lege can't seem to pass the tax or immigration bills: constituents are starting to notice just how radical the tax proposals are, and Big Agriculture might just force some sort of 'guest worker' program : see http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/immigration-laws-ga-economy-837526.html
Opening Night was rocky, but the audience laughed, and as this is nominally a comedy,this is good.

So, on a lighter note, a personal story..
My folks have discovered that the title to the car (a Honda) they bought last year had the wrong VIN number. Getting it changed ('cause they didn't have valid insurance 'till last week) had been a hassle: I took them back to the Atlanta dealership in Feb. with promises from the guys there this would be settled.
Last week a package showed up from the dealership, asking Dad to sign a Power of Attorney, and another loan agreement (they had already paid off the $7000 they financed last Oct.) as well as various papers disclaiming any liability, and an out of state title change they would have to pay for (they're in NC). I got hold of Honda Corporate, and the agent there said 'don't sign', which was the advice of a lawyer friend. They are in a terrible uproar over this (Dad's 84, and has had words with the dealership manager, Mom 80 and not in good health), but it's relieved by....Gossip, the entertainment of Small Towns.
I had a distant cousin, 'Red', who was a repairman for sewing plants (they still exist here as a minimum wage industry), a 'rounder', made whiskey, picked banjos, was married to s 'decent' woman but lived with, and had several daughters (whom I don't know, but dad described as 'looking like the gals in L'il Abner') another woman. The folks were always a bit ashamed of ol' Red.
He seems to have had an arrangement with the wife, kept the place up, mowed the yard, but spent most of the time with the gals and his buddies.
Red died in Dec, and was buried in the Meyer's Chapel Methodist Cemetery. It seems that the daughters came in last week with a backhoe, and exhumed Red without the legal papers, and buried him next to their mama in the Burnt Schoolhouse Baptist cemetery in Shooting Creek.
They put the sod back, but there are tracks, and other evidence (like no corpus...) There is an investigation, and warrants are likely to be issued.
Mom has turned all her anxiety about health and the car issue to this bit of wonderful gossip. While I was there, she had three calls from neighbors asking "Is it true?"
This is the hills, and you can't make this stuff up.

[oddjob]

"...So the pundits who praised this proposal when it was released were punked. The G.O.P. budget plan isn’t a good-faith effort to put America’s fiscal house in order; it’s voodoo economics, with an extra dose of fantasy, and a large helping of mean-spiritedness."

Krugman's column yesterday with his take on Ryan's budget proposal. Read the rest. It's just as good and just as straightforward. He particularly skewers Ryan's voucher proposal for privatizing Medicare with the most obvious of common sense observations.

Hat tip, The Plum Line.

[Sir Charles]

MR Bill,

That is quite the awesome tale.

The joys of living in Yoknapatawpha County.

[oddjob]

you can't make this stuff up

I'm simultaneously shaking my head and smiling...... :)

[MR Bill]

I'm just trying to envision the exhumation....

[Paula B]

Mr Bill's story makes more sense than the hostage situation we're dealing with today.

[Paula B]

This, from a story about power outages in Japan after yesterday's 7.1 quake:

"It's enough," the 64-year-old while smoking a cigarette outside. "Something has changed. The world feels strange now. Even the way the clouds move isn't right."

[oddjob]

Dems. doing plenty of caving and it still isn't enough for the GOP.

(TPM's posts also no longer mention the previous dispute over the EPA's power to regulate greenhouse gases. I don't know what that means.)

[kathy a., in exile on the stupid old laptop]

catching up on reading; don't have a lot to add. it's been crazy busy and stressful the past couple days, for essentially boring reasons, including my main computer getting infected with something or other that causes my antivirus program to assure me all is well, but shuts down the virus scans. i hate being my own IT guy. currently trying to back up my documents on an external hard drive, before attempting god alone knows what to destroy the enemy.

MRBill, that is an excellent story!

[low-tech cyclist]

oddjob - I was wondering the same thing. There were all sorts of riders - not just PP and EPA, but defunding health care reform, all sorts of stuff. As Ezra mentioned in the last day or so, there's even one that prohibits the government from funding a database of consumer complaints about financial products. OMBWatch has a list here: http://www.ombwatch.org/files/budget/OMB_Watch-HR1_Policy_Riders.pdf

[Sir Charles]

I thought the deal on the table was a $38 billion cut -- gulp -- and no riders of any kind.

[oddjob]

(Actually it's $78B, since there's an additional $40B already agreed to that isn't much mentioned.)

[oddjob]

I know at one point the Dem. position was no riders, but since everything's taking place now in private conversations the participants aren't really talking publicly about the details of the negotiating, so I don't know what the status is on the other riders, only about the one for Planned Parenthood. That one rider is the only one the Dems. are talking about publicly now.

[Sir Charles]

oddjob,

This kos item suggests that the EPA rider is dead.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/08/964907/-Lawmakers:-GOPs-anti-EPA-rider-axed

I see that Pelosi has really stood tall as I expected.

But Reid seems to be remarkably resolute on the Planned Parenthood stuff.

Let's hope they continue to hang tough.

[oddjob]

John Kyl's fail of the day

Hat tip, Sully.

[oddjob]

Even Bachmann and Huckabee are urging the GOP not to force a government shutdown!

[oddjob]

This kos item suggests that the EPA rider is dead.

COOL!

[kathy a.]

oddjob, interesting seeing bachmann and huckabee saying a shutdown over this would be stupid. i can't even think of a comparison. what is it called when some outliers step back and say, "um, this is crazy"?

[beckya57]

Don't trust the Huckabee and Bachmann comments. I think they just want to have the big fight over the debt ceiling, rather than this one. I'm afraid the debt ceiling one could end up in catastrophe.

The latest for me is that my husband and I will be working--which is good for our patients--but won't be getting paid until a budget is passed. Also, we may have to cancel or postpone our upcoming vacation and take a big financial hit in the process. Apparently all leaves, including previously approved ones, get canceled during a shutdown.

[oddjob]

Patient Care Provided by Planned Parenthood Affiliate Health Centers

[kathy a.]

spam spam spam spam. nobody click, OK?

becky, i don't know what prompted those people to say what they did; it's not like they have suddenly become rational, though. glad you and your sweetheart can at least keep working and hope for the back pay. [which sucks, but better than some alternatives.]

[kathy a.]

my spam comment was NOT about oddjob's PP link.

[oddjob]

beckya57's position is probably paid for in some other way than the general appropriation process (either that, or it's been deemed that what she does has a direct effect upon the survival of human life in some federal governmentally significant fashion).

If there's a federal government shutdown the inspectors who work for the Customs Service will still go to work as they always do. Their employment isn't paid out of the general appropriations process. Instead it's paid for out of fees generated by those who pay for tickets when they travel by airplane or ship into the USA from some other country (or who do so from the USA as they travel to another country). Those inspectors won't actually be paid until the Congress gets its collective act together and stops playing chicken with this fiscal year's budget (we are now already more than halfway through Fiscal Year 2011, in case you were wondering....) However, when the Congress finally comes back to its collective senses for FY '11 and passes a true authorization for this fiscal year, the Customs inspectors will be fully paid for all the time they worked while the impasse existed (just as I fully suspect beckya57 herself will also be recompensed).

[Gene O'Grady]

On the Wisconsin vote peculiarities, my dad's first political work was for Harry Truman in 1948 when he was a Northwestern student. Now the received wisdom was that the democrats in Chicago just cheated. My dad's version, however, was that the Republicans in the rural parts of the state just threw all the ballots in the river and elections basically became a contest of who could hold out the longest to announce their votes. Sounds a little like the current Wisconsin situation.

[oddjob]

My dad's version, however, was that the Republicans in the rural parts of the state just threw all the ballots in the river and elections basically became a contest of who could hold out the longest to announce their votes. Sounds a little like the current Wisconsin situation.

I noticed that pattern during the Wisconsin voting myself.

This was my first time paying attention to Wisconsin politics, so I don't by any means claim expertise, but I truly did notice that the last districts to fully post their voting results were the most heavily Democratic and the most heavily Republican (in both cases with large enough quantities of outstanding votes that their final reporting might throw the election to their preferred candidate).

[oddjob]

my spam comment was NOT about oddjob's PP link.

Interesting.

Some one of the powers that be removed the relevant comment. There was a comment that justified kathya's countercomment urging us all to ignore it, but that comment has been completely deleted.

:)

[Sir Charles]

becky,

I think a shutdown has been averted.

I took care of the spam by the way. I don't know how they manage that -- I have a hard enough time posting comments when I am really trying.

[beckya57]

Yes, it has been averted, though I'm still worried about the debt ceiling fight.

Oddjob: my husband and I work in military healthcare: after a lot of back and forth, they decided the care providers would all be working, though some of our admin staff was going to be furloughed without pay. I'm happy for them; they need the money more than we do. I'm happy for us that we don't have to cancel our trip to Costa Rica.

[Sir Charles]

becky,

I think you're right to be worried.