Oh! My!

politics is just a game.

fisa, bankster bailout, torture, war, fraud? no problem!

but losing a point to boenher and cantor? never!

But at least the liberal media are pointing out the fact that taking trillion OUT of the economy at this time is foolish.

Also, too, this is great news for John McCain.

I just don’t see what the holdup here is. Surely both men are aware of the tried and true method that their Serious Predecessors have always used to prevent this sort of embarrassing snafu. Why aren’t they simply scheduling another 9 holes of golf for Boner and the President to sort this whole thing out, and tell us what they decided. They can still easily make cocktail hour.

Actually, these idiots could burn water.

I understand President McCain is going to get Sub-Presidente Obama and Gruppenfuhrer Boehner to sit down and tell them to “Stop the bullshit”.

“These guys could fuck up a baked potato”

It’s never very hard. It’s all in the toppings. Cheddar, chives and shit.

Dubya made it a point to be all huffy about his “I don’t read polls”, and as Cheney famously said about what the ‘Murikan people want: “so?”. Now I understand that elected rethugs don’t give a shit about this stuff, but I damned sure wish Obama’s team would look into the results of a few of the more recent ones. You know, the ones that show that the majority wants no cuts to Medicare or Social Security, or the one where the majority of self-identified republicans wanted a debt ceiling deal that included some revenues.

What is it about DC; is it really that insular?

The strategy of alienating your loyal supporters and staking your future on people who don’t like you is a proven winner in the business world. Remember New Coke?

Obama has compromised his 2008 election campaign hope, change, courage of one’s convictions Obama out of existence.

This was an arguable asinine interpretation.

Krugman is far too polite.

Amen. This 11-dimensional chess game of his is too complicated for us mere mortals and tax payers. Obama is not so much being outplayed by the orange oompah-loompah and his GOP brethren as he is trying to get on their team. No wonder Boehner had enough of the “negotiations”:

There’s Obama, awkwardly shuffling his chair over to Boehner’s side of the table with a smile and a knowing shrug, quietly lamenting how those stupid liberals just don’t know their place at the bottom of the food chain. And Boehner is all, like, “no, dude, you don’t get it; you’re supposed to be over there pushing back on our insane plans.” But Obama just laughs that one off: “but I think your plan is for teh winz — as a matter of fact, why don’t we cut a little more from the huddled masses and call it a day, then you and me head out for a round of golf to celebrate a job well done?”

This should all work wonders for his ’12 campaign…

So explain to me TBogg why we can’t tell Obama and his advisers that we’re looking at third parties…I mean, I know the Republicans are crazy as a lot. But if somehow Romney wins the nomination, we are really no worse off since Romney will treat his right wing crazies as badly as Obama treats anyone to the left of Eisenhower (I’d say George Romeny, Mitt’s Dad, but he’d be called a Commie even more than Eisenhower).

And then claim that burned water is good for you.

He did that a couple of years ago. What I’m wondering is, was he ever actually a Democrat?

I wish there was an easy answer, but there isn’t. A third party vote is still a wasted vote because the system is gamed to the Big 2. The only way it is not a wasted vote is if it part of a long range plan that may come to fruition someday, but in all likelihood not while we’re alive.

Even if a third party candidate could somehow win, someone will have to explain to me how that New Brave Consensus Leader is going to get anything done with a congress still made up of warring factions of Democrats & Republicans. Do you really believe that 3rd Party Guy is going to bring everyone together? I don’t even think Jesus could corral these guys.

Let me also add that a President Romney will, if given the chance, nominate a Supreme Court justice who is so business friendly, he’ll make John Roberts look like Abby Hoffman…

Any viable third party has to build from the bottom up, starting with state and local organizations. Once you have an organization at the state and local level capable of winning elections there, then you can start moving on to the national stage. Any effort to start at the presidential level is foolishly doomed from the outset. It is also vital that the local organizing has to be national in scope and not confined to a few metropolitan centers and the like. This has been the downfall of the Green Party, which has absolutely no meaningful presence in many states (including here in Montana). All of this is a long, slow slog taking years or even decades before you can think about the presidency.

I appreciate your response, TBogg.

But it seems like you’re saying, we just scream and rage in the dark, and vote for Obama because of a potential Supreme Court nomination of someone who is to the right of Lewis Powell.

A third party that wins the presidential vote with New Deal values gets the fundamental conversation back into the room in a way that gets a sizable number of Tea Partiers on our side when it comes to a true stimulus plan of national internal improvements. That is worth fighting for–more than worrying about Supreme Court justices, all of whom are reliably pro-business including the Latina one…And really, TBogg, nobody can make John Roberts look like Abie Hoffman. That is simply hyperbole.

Still, at least I did not have to endure being told to keep wearing a Mumia t-shirt, which I do not own in the least. And I thank you for that! :-)

gets the fundamental conversation back into the room in a way that gets a sizable number of Tea Partiers on our side when it comes to a true stimulus plan of national internal improvements

That, to me, is wishful thinking. The teapartiers have yet to show any signs of recognizing that anyone else even has valid views, never mind admitting that they might be correct. In fact, the teapartiers seem to go out of their way to deny that others even can have valid views that differ from those of the teaparty (especially if they’re talking about people who don’t fit in the boxes labeled heterosexual, white, male, and conservative).

As Krugman noted this week, many of the Republicans (much more than just the teabaggers) do not even recognize the legitimacy of Democratic office holders at any level.

Drew’s article is the best analysis of this situation I’ve read … and I’ve never felt more disappointed and discouraged than now. It really is hopeless, isn’t it?

The entire Democratic Party seems fucked in the head, with the exception of Barney and Bernie.

I’m pretty sure that a ‘President’ Romney would insist that all the gurlz on the Supreme Court be removed and they be replaced with Orrin Hatch and John McCain and Ricky Santorum.

Can I go up north naow? I mean, teh Canadians are doing dumb and stupid stuff, but not so much.

How’s Fenway?

The funny thing is is that you all believe that our country and this planet hasn’t become so complex and complicate that our system cannot be run by any human, only pan-galactic, hyper-intelligent space aliens can save us now!!!!!

I take a more hopeful view of where we are. 2008 was the mirror image of 1968 when an old order (New Dealism/Reaganism) got the death blow. But it took 12 years (which seemed even longer when I was young) for the shift to really take place (1980) and perhaps it didn’t really take place until 1994. In those years between 1968 and 1980, the right was always moaning about their standard bearers being closet liberals but for the most part they were patient and stuck with the GOP while the country became more and more susceptible to their ideology. I know it’s hard but we’ve got to work with the marginal victories we can get right now while we wait for the new order to come of age.

And, yes, there are lawyers out there who could make John Roberts look like Abbie Hoffman. Even if there weren’t, we don’t need nine John Roberts on the Court.

The Goldwater Republicans (who gave birth to modern movement conservatism) did not just “wait for the new order to come.” They actively built the infrastructure (PNAC, Heritage, AEI, and the rest of the rightwing noise machine and organizational structure) that made it happen. As I indicated above regarding a third party (which I do not oppose, but which is a decades long project before it can take on the presidency), if you want to effect massive, meaningful change, you have to start grassroots organizing and institution building to make it happen.

Building a movement within the party is fine, but those guys, for the most part, stayed patient until the nation was ready.for them. When they didn’t — 1976 — they got burned.

These days Goldwater looks like a centrist Dem. Which is not a compliment to the centrist Dems.

Obama governs to the right of Nixon, but not quite on a par with Goldwater. On the other hand, Goldwater would certainly qualify as a moderate Republican today.

They kept building that infrastructure and pushing their ideas (unacceptably extreme in 1968, but mainstream today). There was nothing passive about that movement, nor is there now. They continue to build and solidify.

Nobody I know is arguing for passivity — just taking every scrap you get until you can get the whole table.

It’s difficult to imagine pro-abortion, pro-gay rights Goldwater being allowed in the GOP today.

Isn’t it amazing that from the time of JFK to Obama we have gone from The Best And The brightest to The Biggest Fucking Idiots.

And for some reason they have most always had good messaging…I mean…Who can argue with Pro-Life?

And I have recalled Caroline Kennedy in her support saying something like what she has heard people say about her dad…..Gag. I bet she wishes she could take that back…

A coconut would have been the “right product” in 2008 to be sold to the country after 8 years of George W. Bush, as long as it was a Democrat. If the White House is stupid enough to believe their own spin and think that they won because of a carefully constructed platform, nuance, and the desire for bipartisanship… well, they’re pretty fucking dumb.

People threw the R bums out because their results sucked and it was a shit economy. And they’ll throw the current D bums out if their results suck, which they did in 2010, and the results still currently suck (lesson from 2008: responsibility is associated in voters’ minds with the President, not Congress.) And then in 2014, if/when the R bums they replaced the D bums with aren’t producing results, they’ll throw the R bums out again. It’s an inconvenient feature of democracy in a piss-ass economy and lack of coherent fight against the opposing side, and Mitt will figure out what to say in an environment of mass unemployment by 2012.

And Al (Franken).

Bernie is not a Democrat though.

I’ve got news for you. The US ended when Bush stole his elections. Obama is simply using the power handed to him by the Neocons and ramping it up. The next President will do the same. We’re done.

To quote newly minted conservative David Mamet: “These guys could fuck up a baked potato”

Heh, I’ve never heard that one.

I’ve heard “That guy is dumber than a baked potato” but never this one before.

http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/708 Dave Lindorff at This Can’t Be Happening has an idea about a third party run that is pretty interesting. If the Progressive Caucus could be talked into bolting they would already have the money, name recognition and incumbent status to support someone like Bernie Sanders in a presidential bid.

Where do we push? There is no way Obama can reclaim any of the hope, candor, PtsOV, that were part of 08.

Hi RevBev. I honestly don’t know. I feel like, try as we might, we are still just pushing string.

“A third party vote is still a wasted vote because the system is gamed to the Big 2.”

Yeah, look at how strong the Whig Party is!

“The only way it is not a wasted vote is if it part of a long range plan that may come to fruition someday, but in all likelihood not while we’re alive.”

Just because I might not get the benefit of it, it doesn’t mean that I should deprive future generations of it. I’m not into the objectivist virtue of selfishness so just giving up because I might not reap the rewards of my actions doesn’t seem like a responsible thing to do.

I will be as happy as any teabagger to see Obama lose the 2012 election, but for very different reasons. I’m sure whoever replaces him will be awful, but I would like to see a succession of one-term presidents until there is a revolution to overthrow the government. The founders had some good ideas (the Bill of Rights), but they designed a system that is absolutely destined to be engulfed in corruption. It really is a wonder that it has lasted this long.

Money is the mother’s milk of our politics. That is why the Citizens United decision is so valuable. It makes crystal clear what has always been true.

You may be right….I keep having some sense folks are going to get it that he really means to cut SocSec and medical benefits….Some one mentioned earlier all this is going to hit the Boomers…who have never been really silent. But he has alot of momentum, but also true opposition. Who knows…thanks.

Have you guys been following the Twitter Fuck Washington story? I don’t know how to Tweet, but it makes me feel all tingly inside to thing so many people are expressing their disgust with what is happening.

Will be see it spill out onto the streets, though, and would we follow it out there if it did? I’d like to think I would.

I tweeted my piece last night and again today. (Go over to twitter and in the search box type in #fuckyouwashington. Up will pop the comments. I’m pretty sure you don’t need to sign up.) I’ve only gotten on the twitter machine recently myself, and boy oh boy is it fab!

care to share?

All votes for politicians are a waste of time. The only voting that is worthwhile is direct democracy (voting on propositions and bond measures, for example). Voting for office holders creates the illusion of government of, by and for the people. Your worthless vote is trumped by the Big Money.

We need to get rid of elections, professional politicians and partisan politics. We should replace them with the random selection of limited-term representatives.

We can make a difference without winning, or even having a third party to support.

If the percentage of Americans that vote 3rd party or no party rises in several elections in a row, say from 2% to 4% to 10% to 12%, then that alone will spur some serious third party efforts.

Voting for someone other than either major party may be a wasted vote, as suggested by TBogg, but voting for either major party when both endorse torture, ending habeas corpus, and assassinating American citizen makes the voter responsible for enabling those policies.

You vote for Obama when it’s known that he supports and carries out those policies, then you’re personally okaying those policies and are co-conspirators.

Wear those policies proud since those of you that vote for him will OWN them. (I know that you’re not one, spanishinquisition)

Sleep tight, y’all.

My gym bag is packed for a 5:30 deepwater aerobics class……..we’ll see :)

Most recent tweets first:

Is Dick Cheney in jail yet? #fuckyouwashington
#fuckyouwashington for spending my tax money on wars to enrich the ruling elites.
#fuckyouwashington for letting the rich speculate on food while poor people starve.
#fuckyouwashington for letting Dick Cheney roam free while Bradley Manning is locked up.

You are so right about all of those things.

The speculation on wheat is such a damn sin. We continue to enrich monsters.

That does seem like the only workable solution.

Because even if a 3rd party got off the floor, became successful, and started to win elections, then there’s nothing stopping Wall Street and the corporations from buying that party too, eventually.

That was my personal favorite fuckyouwashington tweet. I loathe speculation generally, but I reserve particular disgust for speculation on food.

Thank you! I’m glad someone around here finally thinks so. And I agree with your comment about third parties. That realization is one of the things that led me to think outside the box of elected representation.

God, I’d love it if that happened.

I have a laundry list of things I’d be proposing starting with no House or Senate member shall make more than the median wage of the District/State that they are representing. Separate those that are public servants from those that are in it for the graft.

A girl can dream.

The thing is they may be dumb but they are (or will be) extremely well paid. Obama and his Wall Street cabal are all set for life with 6 or 7 figure salaries- that’s what they are trying not to fuck up. They would rather loose the next election than give up their lucrative post administration speaking fees. And as long as they don’t piss off you know who, they are going to be set. Yes, you know who is not us. Or even the Tea Party.

There are at least a handful of us.

Jeebus, don’t give them any ideas!

They ain’t dumb. They just figure we are. And apparently some of us are because the philosophy is to keep doing the same thing over and over and over even though it’s apparent that it ain’t working. Embrace the suck because doing otherwise is an exercise in futility. Yada Yada Yada

“We can make a difference without winning, or even having a third party to support”

I do expect there to be returns in my lifetime, but even if there isn’t, just because something takes patience is hardly a reason to vote to condone what’s going on now.

It will be quite some time before a third party can win but we have to begin somewhere. Let’s at least try by not voting for the same ones who have created this farce for our country. At this point it might be a good thing for the Dems to get smacked around.

History teaches that there is no political solution for us at this point. I cringe to contemplate what actually will work, again, guided by history. It aint pretty and that’s why I’m outta here before the shit really hits the fan.

This village no longer suits my needs.

We’d still be a British colony if these folks had been around during the infancy of our country. I can hear them now,”we shouldn’t do anything because we’re outnumbered and outgunned. It’s tooooo hard. We’ll never win.” So much for bold visionarism.

Embrace the suck

A new classic.

More colonists fought for the British than for the United States.

TBogg is shrill. I don’t think he gives the obama team enough credit for resurrecting the Tea-GOP party. That took ginormous political skill.

We’re the beginning of a movement. :)

…not to mention enormous balls.

Obama could give two shits about getting reelected. His primary goal, the deal that got him rocketed to national attention and the presidency, was, is now, and always will be the destruction of the American middle and working classes. The poor are already fucked thanks to Bubba’s evisceration of welfare; this is the icing on the cake. Destroy American workers’ sense of economic security and who the fuck needs illegal immigrants to clean out grease traps for $2.00 an hour? Unemployed lawyers, engineers, and college professors will be pulling on rubber gloves and masks in a heartbeat.

So, what this blog is saying is that a professional boxer lost a fight to an out-of-shape pre-teen because his coach gave him some bad advice? Isn’t it easier to believe he threw the fight for money?

That’s part of my point. The people who wanted this country’s independance WERE outgunned and outnumbered. They didn’t allow that to stop them from trying though(after they exhausted petitioning the King.) There was a very good chance they’d “fail” but they did it anyway. Why? Because they believed it was the right thing to do.

Compare that willingness to fight for principles that you believe even though you may lose with today’s progressive whine of “a third party can’t win and write ins are a wasted vote.”

TShirt turf:

“I didn’t fuck up the potato!”

The President’s political advisers studied the numbers and concluded that the voters wanted the government to spend less.

Just exactly how fucking stupid were his “advisers” to come up with such an obviously idiotic conclusion? These dipshits are way out on the raggedy edge. Jeebuz-Looeebuz…

Where’s eCAHN when we need her…..’it’s all kabuki’ … all the time. We’ve done been had. Amen.

Yeah, it seems like I’ve heard for decades how whatever Democrats are in office got played, but it seems more likely they just want it to appear that way…it’s easier to vote for someone because they’re an idiot who go tricked by the bad guys than to vote for one of the bad guys. The emperor had no clothes when HCR played out and saw the Democrats using Republicans as an excuse was just that – an excuse to do what they really wanted to do all along.

This is really scary – Obama will throw Keynesianism out the window because of what his political advisers say…either an economic theory works or it doesn’t. Obama is seriously bad news if for no other reason than he’s letting pollsters drive economic policy questions rather than economists. Having pollsters drive policy is a recipe for total disaster, particularly when doing so results in the WH going all incoherent and self-contradictory.

Apparently they didn’t bother to finish scrolling down to see where Americans wanted them to spend less…….uh on wars. ooopsie

I’ve heard of baked potatoes being fucked up, but it takes some doing. (The one I heard was from a former boss, whose grandkid was helping to fix dinner … and nuked the potatoes for 40 minutes.)

Well, given that many of its members became Republicans….

and without officeholders, you have anarchy.
Maybe that would make you happy, but it isn’t any way to run a country.

You need to read my post more carefully. I didn’t say get rid of officeholders. I said get rid of professional politicians. Go back and read it again please.

it took you long enough to get the obama presidency, tbogg

welcome to reality

Pete DeFazio needs a shout out too!

Boehner & Cantor may be fucking dumb but they’re seriously cunning. Both are ALEC alums

Listen to Glenn Greenwald re not voting foe Dems or Repugs
http://wearemany.org/v/2011/07/civil-liberties-under-obama
start at about the 50 minute mark & listen to the end. Only listen to the first 50 minutes if you can bear to hear what Obama’s doing in our names.

Elections are won with the middle-of-the-road moderate voters, only after you have solidified you base. Even someone running for 8th grade Class President knows that.

Honestly I don’t much think Obama cares one way or another whether he wins. Probably would be happier to hand the reins over to someone else. After all, he served his purpose and not only maintained the status quo but by doing it as a Democrat moved the conversation and dialogue on policy rightward.

I keep asking this question and nobody ever delivers a well-thought answer:

“2.5 million American families will lose their homes this year, 14 million are unemployed, 25 million are unemployed, why are NO Democratic or progressive organizations getting people out into the streets?”

My observation is that they’re all told by the WH strategists to lay low. But after 30 months of this why are they playing along?

I’m suspecting that this gridlock is planned and deliberate as an entry to the “super Congress.”

But Lawrence O’Donnell and Democratic Underground tell me Obama won huge last week, that he has the Republicans by the short ones.

I’d be so confused if I weren’t paying attention.

I’m so sick of hearing people tell me not to believe my lying eyes. Obama has been a huge disappointment.

“…going to blow this presidency up.” ? Are you fucking kidding? They already have. The only way Obama is re-elected is if TeaBags refuse to support the Mormon – Mitt Romney.

Is a 3rd party vote really wasted? One could make a case that a protest vote of that sort has some effect towards building a real 3rd party.

Isn’t a vote for either the Democrats or GOP actually wasted, as the policies of the former have melded so closely with the policies of the latter as to be indistinguishable (all right, I know there are some differences, but they appear to matter less and less, particularly when it comes to making the U.S. into a surveillance-slap-happy, militaristic, bully state)? Where has lesser-evilism really brought us?

In the end, a near majority of Americans have decided to opt-out of the electoral system all together, having voted on this issue with their feet, so to speak.

It’s time for a change. So much so that Obama cynically appropriated that idea, and except for a shrinking coterie of supporters, and those who fear the GOP such that they stick with an idealized view of Democratic Party leaders, no one can really say the word “change” out loud any more without muttering it and shaking their head.

Liked the reference to the apostate Mamet, btw.

This is exactly why third party voting WILL work. The same idealistic young people who took up the banner for our CinC are still out there and the ranks have, if anything, swelled as far as disaffection with governmental policies is concerned.

No one, no one can tell you what the next election will bring based on previous ones. Sure, it’s a flawed system, but we saw it reflect what we thought of our ‘hero’ only two years ago – and I for one don’t believe that the CinC misinterpreted that result. He knew we had wised up to him. I give him credit for a minimum amount of political savvy. It wasn’t that oh, look, a few Republicans want us to negotiate with them now – no, he wanted to do that from the getgo. He is a Trojan Horse, people – we knew it in 2010 and we still know it.

We, honorably, could not support the crimes and shenanigans and we, honorably, cannot support them in 2012. That’s as plain as the nose on your face. (Though really, I don’t think my nose is plain at all, rather interesting bumps there…but I digress.)

You cannot predict the future from the past when it comes to successful electoral political predictions, unless you take into account what the electorate has been accomplishing. We’re already in new territory. Nobody, you can bet, is going to accept the lesser of two evils when that lesser is so evil, and when in fact that lesser seems and is more evil than the first one! And nobody is being brainwashed by the media any longer either; we’ve become thinking persons – 2010 and even 2008 proved that.

Many people now buy that CinC is getting what he wants to get. Not easily but he’s a determined guy on a mission and that mission is trickle down neocon intransigence. He’s a lost cause. Don’t buy into it; he’s no liberal.

Ok. I get it. Obama has let you down, and you want a third party. So stop fucking whining and get busy. What’re you going to call your party? Who gets to be a member of your party? Who will you run as a candidate? How the fuck do you expect to elect this person? The election is 15 months away. Stop bitching. Get busy.

Hey, I’ve fucked up a baked potato or two, but point taken.

I fucked up cooking a sweet potato once — called my wife and asked her, “how long should I microwave this thing?” I punched in the time, wandered off to do something else, and came back to smoke roiling out of the microwave because the damn thing had caught fire.