"A black sheriff?!": The Official Topic of Obama and New Era American Politics

[Van Cruncheon]

There's room for different rhetorical styles in a political movement, that serve different purposes.  There's no reason that Stewart, Krugman, Taibbi, Zakaria, etc. shouldn't coexist.  Convincing moderates, rallying the troops, bringing in youth, self-policing are all important functions and different writers and media figures are going have different audiences and fill different niches.

There is no magic language that would turn everyone liberal if only lefty pundits all started speaking it.  Even if there were what are you gonna do?  Call a huddle, and say "Okay guys, everyone is going to start talking the same way, okay?"  This is probably not gonna happen.

Here's the problem, Mandark.  Conservatives learned a long time ago to amalgamate these these groups and use them to lean each other to get specific messages across.  Take a look at Fox News, whose real brilliance is finding enough "experts" to back up the passion of Glenn Beck, Hannity etc.  Liberals seem opposed to take taking this whole approach, as if Krugman and Moore shouldn't have anything to do with each other ever even though politically they line up perfectly.

Pretty much this. Liberals seem to hate to prop up their peers, and in order to demonstrate their opposition to any sort of groupthink -- or at least demonstrate that they are "independent thinkers" -- they will frequently dismiss their peers or separate themselves from their fellow ideological pitchmen. "Oh, Krugman," says the academic hack called in to discuss Democratic positions on CNN. "Yeah, he's just a little too out there for me, haha."

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

IMO, part of that probably has to do with the fact that anyone "left" means anyone who isn't right or far right.  Whereas the American "left" has the center-right, center, center-left, left, and far left.  With so many differing opinions, I'm not sure how pundits and media personalities can align.  The right has it much easier because it has smaller territory and therefore, the views are much more similar.

[Phoenix Dark]

[youtube=560,345]92U5bznwr8o[/youtube]
 

[Human Snorenado]

Looks like the new head of the Govt. Oversight committee in the House has the right idea:  "hundreds" of hearings investigating Obama.

"Issa told POLITICO in an interview that he wants each of his seven subcommittees to hold “one or two hearings each week.”

“I want seven hearings a week times 40 weeks,” Issa said."

Glad these principled conservatives are focusing on trimming spending, upholding the Constitution, etc.

[Phoenix Dark]

If I listen to Michael Jackson, am I co-signing his pedo behavior? Or if I listen to Rolling Stones/Beatles/Bob Dylan/stuffoldwhitepeoplelike am I co-signing drug use and drugs? I love how Fox always gets two black people with bad arguments to duke it out.

naz lost

[Himu]

I actually hope they try to impeach him. It will cause an explosion and they will be fucked in 2012, guaranteed.

[Himu]

If I listen to Michael Jackson, am I co-signing his pedo behavior? Or if I listen to Rolling Stones/Beatles/Bob Dylan/stuffoldwhitepeoplelike am I co-signing drug use and drugs? I love how Fox always gets two black people with bad arguments to duke it out.

naz lost

Dear citizens of the world.

I am a satanist.

[youtube=560,345]DT1KRZOK4VE[/youtube]

[Brehvolution]

A week to the day

In a bigger shift from his campaign pledge to end earmarks, he tells me that they are a bad "symbol" of easy spending but that he will fight for Kentucky's share of earmarks and federal pork, as long as it's doled out transparently at the committee level and not parachuted in in the dead of night. "I will advocate for Kentucky's interests," he says.

  That didn't take long.

[Mupepe]

Jesus Christ.  What a fucking joke.

[Brehvolution]

It's just another example that it's only pork when it's not spent in your district.

[Phoenix Dark]

Southern states love their pork and gubmint welfare

[Phoenix Dark]

Greene, the unlikely Democratic Senate nominee in South Carolina who lost overwhelmingly to Republican Sen. Jim DeMint last week, called the state Democratic Party Tuesday to ask how much it would cost to run for president.

“Maybe. I’ll have to see,” Greene told POLITICO when asked whether he was considering filing to run for president. He confirmed that he called the state party on Tuesday to ask about the fee. The state party’s spokeswoman, Keiana Page, confirmed that someone called the party on Tuesday asking about the presidential filing fee, but said that the caller did not identify himself.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/44895.html#ixzz14oJk7bpi

I want a three way presidential debate between Obama, Palin, and Greene

[Cheebs]

lol he has to pay the filling fee in every state he wants to be on the ballot on I believe.

[Dickie Dee]

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

A week to the day

In a bigger shift from his campaign pledge to end earmarks, he tells me that they are a bad "symbol" of easy spending but that he will fight for Kentucky's share of earmarks and federal pork, as long as it's doled out transparently at the committee level and not parachuted in in the dead of night. "I will advocate for Kentucky's interests," he says.

  That didn't take long.

LOL but let's be serious, we all knew that tea partiers were going to participate in pork spending.  People bitch and cry about pork spending but if they don't partake, then people will bitch and cry about how their representative or senator doesn't care about them.

[T-Short]

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/11/01/101101fa_fact_hersh?currentPage=all

Nice Hersh writeup about the OMG CYBER WARFARE hype/arms race, NSA scaremongering for power grabs and the military-cyber complex.

[Phoenix Dark]

horay bipartisanship

The White House's fiscal commission's co-chairs, Erskine Bowles and former-Sen. Alan Simpson today released their draft recommendations on how to reduce the country's budget deficit. But while the deficit, writ large, proved a potent political issue during the election season, the tough medicine recommended by Bowles and Simpson is likely to be met with more than a few raised eyebrows.

Some of the recommendations:

Social Security cuts:

    * Index the retirement age to longevity -- i.e., increase the retirement age to qualify for Social Security -- to age 69 by 2075.
    * Index Social Security yearly increases to inflation rather than wages, which will generally mean lower cost of living increases and less money per average recipient.
    * "Increase progressivity of benefit formula" -- i.e., means test part of Social Security benefits by 2050.
    * Increase the Social Security contribution ceiling: while people only pay Social Security taxes on the first $106,800 of their wages today, that's only about 86% of the total potentially taxable wages. The co-chairs suggest raising the ceiling to capture 90% of wages.

Tax reform:

    * The co-chairs suggest capping both government expenditures and revenue at 21% of GDP eventually.
    * In their first plan, called "The Zero Plan," they suggest reducing the tax brackets to three personal brackets and one corporate rate while eliminated all credits and deductions. Without any credits or deductions (including the ETIC and mortgage interest deductions), the 3 tax rates would be 8, 14 and 23 percent.
    * In their second plan, they would increase the personal deduction to $15,000, create 3 tax brackets (15, 25 and 35%); repeal or significantly curtail a number of popular tax deductions (including the state and local deduction and the mortgage interest deduction); and eliminate other tax expenditures.
    * The third plan would force Congress to undertake comprehensive tax reform by 2012 by raising taxes for each year Congress fails to act.
    * All their proposals limit Congress to collecting taxes on income made within the United States, reducing or eliminating taxes on American expats and revenues companies earn abroad.
    * They also suggest raising the federal gas tax to 15 cents per gallon in 2013.

Medicaid/Medicare cuts

    * Force more low-income individuals into Medicaid managed care.
    * Increase Medicaid co-pays.
    * Accelerate already-planned cuts to Medicare Advantage and home health care programs.
    * Create a cap for Medicaid/Medicare growth that would force Congress and the President to increase premiums or co-pays or raise the Medicare eligibility age (among other options) if the system encounters cost overruns over the course of 5 years.

Discretionary spending cuts

    * Freeze federal worker wage increases through 2014; eliminate 200,000 federal jobs by 2020; and eliminate 250,000 federal non-defense contractor jobs by 2015.
    * Establish co-pays in the VA medical system and change the co-pays and deductibles for military retirees that remain in that system.

    * Eliminate NASA funding for commercial space flight.
    * Require the Smithsonian museums to start charging entrance fees and raise fees at the national parks.
    * Eliminate funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- which many conservatives suggested in the wake of the firing of former NPR contributor Juan Williams.
    * Reduce farm subsidies by $3 billion per year.


The report also recommends tort reform as a way to reduce Medicare and Medicaid expenditure

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/deficit-commission-co-chairs-simpson-and-bowles-release-eye-popping-recommendations.php

[Mupepe]

I agree with a lot of those, but yeah, not happening

NASA commercial flights :'(

[Brehvolution]

Cut top tax rate to 23%

* All their proposals limit Congress to collecting taxes on income made within the United States, reducing or eliminating taxes on American expats and revenues companies earn abroad.

So, in a nutshell, take away from the poor and lighten the load on the rich.

[Mupepe]

* In their second plan, they would increase the personal deduction to $15,000, create 3 tax brackets (15, 25 and 35%); repeal or significantly curtail a number of popular tax deductions (including the state and local deduction and the mortgage interest deduction); and eliminate other tax expenditures.

I like this better.

Zero Hero, but aren't they basically saying they're getting rid of loopholes in order to lower the base tax bracket? I'd imagine there's a lot of funny math, but it's possible that with all the loopholes they'll end up paying more with a lower base tax rate.  but like I said, funny math and probably all bullshit theory.

[Human Snorenado]

So they want to cut farm subsidies by 15%.  HOW BOLD. 

Also, nothing about cutting defense spending.  GOOD JON, GUYS.

[Mupepe]

yeah i love how we're going to cut 250k federal jobs by 2015 as long as they're not defense contractors.  what did we expect from an administration with no balls though?

[Brehvolution]

The mortgage interest deduction is a huge one. If this passes, there is little reason to buy a house. but I bet this won't fly.

[Phoenix Dark]

So they want to cut farm subsidies by 15%.  HOW BOLD. 

Also, nothing about cutting defense spending.  GOOD JON, GUYS.

they cut defense by $100 billion actually. Not that it will ever happen!

[Human Snorenado]

...aaaaaand Lou Dobbs just signed with Fox.

[ShogunOfFear]

Boehner to Fly Commercial as House Speaker

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[Dickie Dee]

Boehner to Fly Commercial as House Speaker

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

The fucking stupid things you seals will clap for.

btw

[ToxicAdam]

Boner

Real American.

Ohio values

[Mandark]

I didn't notice who posted that, and I thought SoF's post was by a librul member satirizing conservatives.   



Anyways, that commission is probably DOA.  Those things only work if both sides are looking for the political cover to make unpopular decisions, like closing military bases.

My guess is that this will be as quickly forgotten as the Iraq Study Group.

[Dickie Dee]

It's being touted as "Obama's Debt Commission" - so it'll probably be continuously spun as Obama sticking his fingers in his ears and not listening to the Washington Grown-ups™

Edit: Though if some of the recommendations might be untenable politically (raising SS age), it might be easier to just dismiss the whole thing.

Still editing: I'd like an actual analysis of how their revised brackets w/ no loopholes would actually effect revenue. I doubt it's something this commission seriously crunched numbers on besides cocktail napkin estimates.

[Mandark]

If anything, the Commission represents the consensus among Washington Grown-ups™:  a bunch of deeply unpopular moves to close the deficit.  It looks a lot like something Robert Samuelson could have drawn up.

[Human Snorenado]

If anything, the Commission represents the consensus among Washington Grown-ups™:  a bunch of deeply unpopular moves to close the deficit.  It looks a lot like something Robert Samuelson could have drawn up.

My favorite quote on it has to be from Sully: 

Much of it is way over my head in terms of the specifics of government programs and the ability to cut them. But the core proposal is honest, real, and vital

Sounds awesome!  Can't wait to hear what David Brooks thinks.

[Himu]

The farm subsidies cut is absolutely mind boggling.

[Phoenix Dark]

Unserious People

OK, let’s say goodbye to the deficit commission. If you’re sincerely worried about the US fiscal future — and there’s good reason to be — you don’t propose a plan that involves large cuts in income taxes. Even if those cuts are offset by supposed elimination of tax breaks elsewhere, balancing the budget is hard enough without giving out a lot of goodies — goodies that fairly obviously, even without having the details, would go largely to the very affluent.

I mean, what’s this about? There is no — zero — evidence that income taxes at current rates are an important drag on growth.

Oh, and they’re talking about raising the retirement age, because people live longer — except that the people who really depend on Social Security, those in the bottom half of the distribution, aren’t living much longer. So you’re going to tell janitors to work until they’re 70 because lawyers are living longer than ever.

Still, I guess this is what it takes to get compromise, if by compromise you mean something the center-right and the hard right can agree on.

Update: It’s here. And it really is that bad. The idea that co-chairs of a commission whose charge is fiscal sustainability should take it upon themselves to (a) declare that federal revenue must not exceed 21 percent of GDP — that’s right, putting a cap on receipts and (b) call for reducing the top rate from 35 to 23 is just awesome.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/unserious-people-2/

who thought this was a good idea.

[tiesto]

yeah i love how we're going to cut 250k federal jobs by 2015 as long as they're not defense contractors.  what did we expect from an administration with no balls though?

WHEW! Safe for now...

military-industrial complex

[Himu]

How do you put a cap on federal revenue like that?

[Phoenix Dark]

iirc it hovers around 17-20% on average in the US. A budget deficit commission putting a cap on federal revenue makes no sense, and is out of bounds in fact.

edit: just saw this

'Its like my accountant telling me how much my income should be'
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/11/the_cochairs_peculiar_tax_cap.html

Makes the point perfectly

[Human Snorenado]

At this point we DESERVE to be turned into a Chinese fiefdom.  Of course, if we give it another couple years of this stupidity not even they're gonna want us as a debtor state.

[Mandark]

The draft --> http://www.scribd.com/doc/41938621/CoChair-Draft

Page 25, if I'm reading it right, is a chart showing that the rich benefit more than anyone from tax carve-outs.  The implicit message is that the lower top rate will be balanced out by getting rid of all the exemptions and credits (and by treating dividends/capital gains as regular income, which I totally support).

I'd have to see the numbers crunched by someone I trust before believing that, though.  And getting rid of the EITC and standard exemptions makes it a pretty huge tax raise on the working poor, unless I'm missing something.

[Fresh Prince]

At this point we DESERVE to be turned into a Chinese fiefdom.  Of course, if we give it another couple years of this stupidity not even they're gonna want us as a debtor state.

It's refered to as 'Capatilism with an asian flavour'.

[Phoenix Dark]

I prefer "General Dow's Chicken"

[Oblivion]

Good news, guys. Obama came up with the perfect compromise regarding the Bush tax cuts: Give the republicans everything they want and not get anything in return:

President Barack Obama's top adviser suggested to The Huffington Post late Wednesday that the administration is ready to accept an across-the-board continuation of steep Bush-era tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest taxpayers.

That appears to be the only way, said David Axelrod, that middle-class taxpayers can keep their tax cuts, given the legislative and political realities facing Obama in the aftermath of last week's electoral defeat.

"We have to deal with the world as we find it," Axelrod said during an unusually candid and reflective 90-minute interview in his office, steps away from the Oval Office. "The world of what it takes to get this done."

"There are concerns," he added, that Congress will continue to kick the can down the road in the future by passing temporary extensions for the wealthy time and time again. "But I don't want to trade away security for the middle class in order to make that point."

At least he's remaining firm on his troop drawing down schedule in Iraq.

[Phoenix Dark]

Is anyone truly surprised? For all the tough talk coming from the WH, at the end of the day the ball was always in the republican's court; if a decision or compromise wasn't made, the taxes go up in January and Obama gets the blame.

Should have acted before the midterms, back when every single poll showed dems were winning on the issue.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

The default Democrat position is the fetal position.

Better get used to it these next couple of years.

[Dickie Dee]

I saw a good point about just how regressive raising the SS age would be - lifespans aren't rising across the board and are largely tied to one's socio-economic status.

Which means janitors are going to have to work longer because lawyers and engineers are living longer. smh.

[Beardo]

I saw a good point about just how regressive raising the SS age would be - lifespans aren't rising across the board and are largely tied to one's socio-economic status.

Which means janitors are going to have to work longer because lawyers and engineers are living longer. smh.

Of course, SS hurts minorities with lower than average life explecantcies. But nobody wants to have a serious discussion about SS (on either side)

[Mandark]

Of course, SS hurts minorities with lower than average life explecantcies. But nobody wants to have a serious discussion about SS (on either side)

So you think we should change government policy in order to help marginalized minority groups?  That's quite a change from when you argued against the Civil Rights Act.  Welcome to the liberal fold!

But doesn't it seem more natural to focus on closing that life expectancy gap rather than deciding that minorities don't need to worry about retirement?

spoiler (click to show/hide)

The life expectancy gap between black and white males in America at birth is ~6 years, but the gap at time of retirement is ~2 years.  The biggest part of the gap is risk factors earlier in life, not the longevity of people who made it to old age.

[close]

[Himu]

Hahahaha, if Obama caves on that he has lost a vote in 2012 and not only that, but the democratic party has lost a member. I'm going independent.

[Mandark]

Haven't you been banging on and on about not voting already?

[Cheebs]

Haven't you been banging on and on about not voting already?

Since the day after Obama was elected basically.

[Fresh Prince]

himu thinks his vote matters

[Phoenix Dark]

"Hey Himu, did you vote?"
"Nope, too busy playing FFXV"
"But Obama didn't cave on the tax cuts remember?"
"Nope, was too busy playing FFXIII"

[Brehvolution]

I'm calling it now. Obama extends everyone's tax cut and the next day some tard on fox news will say that he is just adding to the deficit.

[tiesto]

"Hey Himu, did you vote?"
"Nope, too busy playing FFXV"
"But Obama didn't cave on the tax cuts remember?"
"Nope, was too busy playing FFXIII"

Totally fictional scenario... by the time FFXV comes out, Obama won't even be in office anymore

[Phoenix Dark]

not true considering it'll be for the 3DS :p

[Phoenix Dark]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/11/thats_the_mandate.php?ref=fpblg

mandark/willco/etc explain

[Van Cruncheon]

sounds like treason to me

[Brehvolution]

It's only treason when it's against a republican.

[Mandark]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/11/thats_the_mandate.php?ref=fpblg

mandark/willco/etc explain

I don't know what you're talking about.

*Calls in a ZOG cleanup team to deal with PD*

[Dickie Dee]

To be fair that could've come from almost any Republican's mouth, not just Cantor because he's Jewish. Actually, I'm surprised he went there and didn't just leave it to the Rapture freaks. They may "like" jews, but they don't "like like" jews.

BTW, we're long overdue for an :israelcry emoticon, no teared mascot jumps out at me, but maybe Yitzhak Rabin would do. Discuss.