Well, we're down in the muck of all this government shutdown crap. No one wanted to be here, and a lot of us would like to yell at GOP leaders how stupid they are, but that won't fix things. We're in it, and we can either make things worse for us with mutual recriminations (as usual), or we can try to win this battle. And I think we sort of can.
Now when I say "win," what do I mean? For starters, I don't mean defunding, much less repealing, ObamaCare. We shouldn't resign ourselves to that abomination, either; but evidently, the TOTUS is going to stake his legacy on the legislation, and I believe he would rather resign than abandon that goal. Besides, he's still got enough support from his base that he can't be made to give it up. Nor does it mean completely humiliating him at the negotiation table (if/when we ever get there). Neither side ever has total victory in these things.
No, a Republican "victory" in this showdown would consist of a couple different things. 1) While we almost certainly can't wrangle defunding out of the Dems, a further delay of key provisions or even some significant revisions are still within our grasp, at least theoretically. (What those revisions would be, I can't say; that's for people with a better knowledge of the ins and outs of health care.) 2) Although I've never been a huge fan of "PR triumphs," preferring real triumphs instead, the fact is there is a way for the GOP and its conservative philosophy to come out on top whatever happens with ObamaCare. And as events this week have shown, the Democrats have done quite a bit to help us along with that. But there's still a lot to do.
So for whatever it's worth, here are my proposed steps:
Step One: DON'T PANIC. First off, let's not automatically assume that Republicans are going to lose this fight and have their public image permanently trashed. Remember the speed at which the news cycle travels? The whole shutdown issue won't go away in voters' minds, especially if if gets conflated with the debt ceiling fight, but it's not going to be the deciding factor in the next elections. Those are still more than a year off. (That kind of undercuts my argument about being able to turn it around on the Democrats, but the important thing is avoiding a disaster ourselves, so that's okay.) As some pundits have been pointing out recently, making comparisons with the 1995-96 shutdown fiasco isn't a huge cause for worry, either; in reality, all sides bounced back to their previous approval levels soon enough, and Democrat wins in '96 probably would have happened anyway, given the economy and all.
Plus, keep in mind that as a result of redistricting, relatively few GOP congressmen are in swing or bluish districts and therefore in electoral danger, and that's not likely to change significantly regardless of the outcome. Which leads me into my next point...
Step Two: Talk To Your Public. Notice I said "Your Public," not "The Public." Again, most of the GOP congressmen are safe, because they have reliably red districts. A majority of them, being loyal to the Right, are naturally going to blame Obama and Senate Democrats for the shutdown crisis more than House Republicans. They'll get some blame, don't get me wrong, but not the bulk of it. This makes the advice being floated from some conservatives even smarter: If Boehner can't get any traction with Obama and Reid in the next couple days, he should let the bulk of fellow GOPers go home for a little while and get some feedback from their constituents. This is an okay move, because not only will they be seen as trying to respond to the desires of the public, they can come back and truthfully claim (based on what they've been hearing in their conservative districts) that the public gives equal if not more blame to the Democrats, and they're wanting Obama and Co. to compromise on this. If they won't, this is all on them.
Step Three: Get In Their Faces. As a certain famous politician once said. Obama and Senate Democrats have been providing conservatives with SO many openings this week. There's been Harry Reid's idiotic "Why would we want to help just ONE child?" line from the other day. There's Mr. Friend of Labor himself, the Prez, saying shutting down the government is as unjustifiable as a worker shutting down a factory because he doesn't like how it's being run (no, really). And there's all sorts of unhinged rhetoric from the Left about physically destroying the GOP for its temerity. Get on TV, ignore the gotcha questions from the reporters, and make the Dems own this rhetoric.
And while you're at it, guys, bring up the inadvertent admissions from the Left's own heroes. Bring up Bob Woodward's statement that the continuation of this shutdown is "on the President's head" for refusing to engage in serious discussions and creating a vacuum of leadership. While he's not exactly a major hitter in Hollywood, bring up actor Rob Schneider's recent announcement that he's switching to the Republican Party. Imply that it's the Democrats who are driving people away with their inflexible, extremist positions, and don't let up. The media will be forced to at least address it, and people will start to wonder.
Step Four: Be All Sweet Reason. As you probably know, the House Republicans have pushed through temporary, partial spending bills all this week, funding specific portions of the government, which have all been killed by the Senate. They should keep doing this. They may bear a lot of the onus for causing this shutdown right now, but the longer this goes on, the longer the Senate keeps rejecting these stopgap measures, the more people will start to wonder why Reid won't allow even a brief, incomplete respite. In fact, Boehner and the leadership should ramp it up. If the Senate will kill them anyway, expand these bills to include more and more of the government, and finally announce that you're ready to temporarily fund all the rest of DC (or as much of it as the rules allow) right now, if only Obama and Reid will agree to some further negotiations on ObamaCare. This is going to get noticed--and in that case, all the stories the media is running about those po' wittle civil servants going broke while unemployed may come back to bite the Left.
Now, this may not do the job, and in any case, we should limit our expectations. But a full-court press by the House, using all these tactics, will certainly force the public to rethink who's really responsible for this mess, and who's ready to fix it. And it's just possible, given the growing debacle with the ObamaCare rollout, that the Dems really will be forced to the bargaining table on this, too. Maybe not. But it's better than just bemoaning each other.
Any suggestions?
Now when I say "win," what do I mean? For starters, I don't mean defunding, much less repealing, ObamaCare. We shouldn't resign ourselves to that abomination, either; but evidently, the TOTUS is going to stake his legacy on the legislation, and I believe he would rather resign than abandon that goal. Besides, he's still got enough support from his base that he can't be made to give it up. Nor does it mean completely humiliating him at the negotiation table (if/when we ever get there). Neither side ever has total victory in these things.
No, a Republican "victory" in this showdown would consist of a couple different things. 1) While we almost certainly can't wrangle defunding out of the Dems, a further delay of key provisions or even some significant revisions are still within our grasp, at least theoretically. (What those revisions would be, I can't say; that's for people with a better knowledge of the ins and outs of health care.) 2) Although I've never been a huge fan of "PR triumphs," preferring real triumphs instead, the fact is there is a way for the GOP and its conservative philosophy to come out on top whatever happens with ObamaCare. And as events this week have shown, the Democrats have done quite a bit to help us along with that. But there's still a lot to do.
So for whatever it's worth, here are my proposed steps:
Step One: DON'T PANIC. First off, let's not automatically assume that Republicans are going to lose this fight and have their public image permanently trashed. Remember the speed at which the news cycle travels? The whole shutdown issue won't go away in voters' minds, especially if if gets conflated with the debt ceiling fight, but it's not going to be the deciding factor in the next elections. Those are still more than a year off. (That kind of undercuts my argument about being able to turn it around on the Democrats, but the important thing is avoiding a disaster ourselves, so that's okay.) As some pundits have been pointing out recently, making comparisons with the 1995-96 shutdown fiasco isn't a huge cause for worry, either; in reality, all sides bounced back to their previous approval levels soon enough, and Democrat wins in '96 probably would have happened anyway, given the economy and all.
Plus, keep in mind that as a result of redistricting, relatively few GOP congressmen are in swing or bluish districts and therefore in electoral danger, and that's not likely to change significantly regardless of the outcome. Which leads me into my next point...
Step Two: Talk To Your Public. Notice I said "Your Public," not "The Public." Again, most of the GOP congressmen are safe, because they have reliably red districts. A majority of them, being loyal to the Right, are naturally going to blame Obama and Senate Democrats for the shutdown crisis more than House Republicans. They'll get some blame, don't get me wrong, but not the bulk of it. This makes the advice being floated from some conservatives even smarter: If Boehner can't get any traction with Obama and Reid in the next couple days, he should let the bulk of fellow GOPers go home for a little while and get some feedback from their constituents. This is an okay move, because not only will they be seen as trying to respond to the desires of the public, they can come back and truthfully claim (based on what they've been hearing in their conservative districts) that the public gives equal if not more blame to the Democrats, and they're wanting Obama and Co. to compromise on this. If they won't, this is all on them.
Step Three: Get In Their Faces. As a certain famous politician once said. Obama and Senate Democrats have been providing conservatives with SO many openings this week. There's been Harry Reid's idiotic "Why would we want to help just ONE child?" line from the other day. There's Mr. Friend of Labor himself, the Prez, saying shutting down the government is as unjustifiable as a worker shutting down a factory because he doesn't like how it's being run (no, really). And there's all sorts of unhinged rhetoric from the Left about physically destroying the GOP for its temerity. Get on TV, ignore the gotcha questions from the reporters, and make the Dems own this rhetoric.
And while you're at it, guys, bring up the inadvertent admissions from the Left's own heroes. Bring up Bob Woodward's statement that the continuation of this shutdown is "on the President's head" for refusing to engage in serious discussions and creating a vacuum of leadership. While he's not exactly a major hitter in Hollywood, bring up actor Rob Schneider's recent announcement that he's switching to the Republican Party. Imply that it's the Democrats who are driving people away with their inflexible, extremist positions, and don't let up. The media will be forced to at least address it, and people will start to wonder.
Step Four: Be All Sweet Reason. As you probably know, the House Republicans have pushed through temporary, partial spending bills all this week, funding specific portions of the government, which have all been killed by the Senate. They should keep doing this. They may bear a lot of the onus for causing this shutdown right now, but the longer this goes on, the longer the Senate keeps rejecting these stopgap measures, the more people will start to wonder why Reid won't allow even a brief, incomplete respite. In fact, Boehner and the leadership should ramp it up. If the Senate will kill them anyway, expand these bills to include more and more of the government, and finally announce that you're ready to temporarily fund all the rest of DC (or as much of it as the rules allow) right now, if only Obama and Reid will agree to some further negotiations on ObamaCare. This is going to get noticed--and in that case, all the stories the media is running about those po' wittle civil servants going broke while unemployed may come back to bite the Left.
Now, this may not do the job, and in any case, we should limit our expectations. But a full-court press by the House, using all these tactics, will certainly force the public to rethink who's really responsible for this mess, and who's ready to fix it. And it's just possible, given the growing debacle with the ObamaCare rollout, that the Dems really will be forced to the bargaining table on this, too. Maybe not. But it's better than just bemoaning each other.
Any suggestions?
58 comments:
T-Rav, Nice article. I agree with most all of it, though I actually have a feeling that Boehner will get a delay of Obamacare. The reason I think that is that:
(1) Boehner has no real choice but to see this thing through, whereas Obama knows he can't wait forever and the guy with nothing to lose always wins at chicken,
(2) The public seems to be ignoring this issue. That is bad news for Obama, because he wants to "restore the trust" in government and each day just further verifies how unneeded the government is... so this is doing the kind of damage to his ideology that makes ideologues very nervous, hence the left will want to get past this, and
(3) Obama is mishandling this thing so badly that even the MSM aren't able to cover his rear end. Seriously -- shutting down open monuments, blocking out veterans, refusing to negotiate, telling Wall Street they should tank the market, whining about how NSA is being hurt because he furloughed essential people, speeches that don't even seem to be able to explain why he cares... that's all bad news.
Some good ideas, Rav! It does beat bemoaning.
Really good ideas which worries me that the repubs won't be smart enough to implement.
Thanks Jed! I thought so. :-)
Kosh, the saying common in my family comes to mind: "Unfortunately, (so-and-so) never asked for my opinion."
Andrew, I certainly hope so. I do get the feeling that behind the scenes, Obama and his people are very worried that if people don't notice a lot of changes in the day-to-day, they'll start to think some of the shut-down agencies are unnecessary, and they definitely don't want to risk that sinking in.
Plus, the polls are showing that he and the Democrats are catching almost as much flak over this as the GOP; hence some recent bemoaning to the press about how people don't understand "who started this whole mess," etc. I figure if they cave at all, they'll keep up their song-and-dance in public until the very last second, and then announce a compromise.
That and they just have too much common sense. Too logical. Therefore will be rejected by the out for blood crowd.
Kidding aside I think what the dems are showing is that they don't have any clear leadership. Seriously would anyone expect this kind of aloofness from any of the last ten presidents? The GOP should also keep telling the people and media that they are ready to talk and negotiate at any time with everything on the table. Be the reasonable one. Similar to your step 4.
T-Rav, That certainly seems to be the case at the moment.
You know where I think this comes from actually? Sequestration. The MSM made such a HUGE deal of Sequestration... "IT'S END OF THE WORLD!!" Then it happened and hardly anyone noticed. Suddenly, the MSM looked like fools. I think the result was that the MSM wasn't willing to go through that again and they decided they weren't going to sell this as a disaster even though that has been the Obama party line. Hence, they aren't backing him up -- then you add in Obama trying very hard to cause something to upset people and that will always cause blowback.
At the same time, sequestration taught the public not to fear claims of "the end of the world" when it comes to government shutdowns/budgets. Thus, they simply said, "We've heard this tune before" and they have ignored this one.
I'm quite optimistic right now.
Koshcat, That's been the one unified message I've seen from all Republicans in article after article and interview after interview. They all say something like: "Obama said he would negotiate with anyone, anywhere, anytime... except apparently Republicans. Meet with us Mr. President, let's solve this problem." I think that sells well, especially with Obama doing all kinds of stupid things.
I honestly hope he goes golfing this weekend.
I agree with almost the entire article, though I'm not so sure Rob Schneider is a catch worth boasting about.
Ratings for Congress are low (10%) but I doubt any individual rep's ratings are that low. Most of Congress is in safe seats and only fears a challenge from their party's wing. Giving up will only make them vulnerable.
The Democrats' decision to try to soften the blow of the shutdown is great news because it makes it more tolerable and puts the blame for the shutdown on Obama since he is the one deciding who/what gets hammered.
T-Rav.....It appears the only area where the "shutdown" is being felt, or seen, is in the DC area. So most Americans could give a you know what that the government is shut down. When the checks stop, that's when the pain will be felt. That's when the press will go into full Repub blame mode.
Yet I still read articles by conservatives (Am Thinker) that advocate the Repub message be "allow interstate insurance sales!" While that is certainly part of a solution (maybe) the Repubs and their media need more of the gotcha questions like the one posed to Harry Reid.
I really think they should fund it all and watch it implode. The time will come when the R's have both houses of congress and the WH. Then they just do what the D's did to pass it...they remove it from the books or change it significantly along strict party lines. And constantly state that this is how it was passed, this is how it is repealed.
BTW (OT)....Watching the "coverage" or lack thereof, of the DC shooting yesterday, I'm amazed at how trigger happy these "officers" are. What, they couldn't have shot the tires out and pulled her out? They are damn lucky they didn't kill the 1 year old in the back seat. It looked to me like she freaked out when she turned into a guarded area, and tried to get out of there. Unfortunately, the "officers" (and look at how many plain clothed officers were right there) immediately swarmed her car with guns drawn and screaming at her to get out. So what went from a wrong turn, turned into another death.
And if you have never been surrounded with large men with guns suddenly surrounding you and asking you questions, you can't understand the feelings that that situation can bring.
Patriot,
That nutjob wasn't lost. Lost people don't run into barricades and then subsequently run over cops. Also, I don't know what video you watched, but most of the cops I saw were in uniform so there was no room for confusion. The only disappointment is that the cops weren't better shots. If the nutjob's car had been wired to explode, she would have had time to detonate it.
The cops are lucky they didn't kill the one year old though if they had it wouldn't have been their fault. Its a shame the nutjob put the baby in that position.
And yes, I have been confronted multiple times by uniformed men with guns asking me questions.
Anthony, yeah, all things being equal, I'd rather we had a different convert than the star of Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo. But you take what you can get, and there's a fair amount of hay to be made from the fact that a well-known guy has been moved by the political situation to switch parties. Not a lot, but some.
Individual approval ratings are almost never as low as overall congressional approval ratings, no matter what the situation, and that's the situation here. Most GOP members constituents are going to put more of the blame on the other side, so no, there's actually much less for them to fear in that direction than one might think.
Anthony....I watched a smartphone video of when the car first went up to the barriers and the subsequent reaction. It's damn shame really. I'm not saying the cops were wrong. They obviously don't know what is going on and I'm not condoning the woman's behavior once confronted. My point is, if I indeed have one, that most civilians are never confronted by gun toting "police," or MP's in military cases.
The "nutjob" as you state, did indeed put her child into a position where she could have been shot by officers doing their job.
I guess I'm just not inured enough yet to read about a woman getting killed by police to just chalk it up to mental disorder and no discussion if the police might have been able to deescalate the situation without resorting to live fire.
And no, I wasn't there so I can't get into the minds of the officers who were in fear for their lives. The woman brought this all on herself and her baby.
OTOH....The Daily Mail claims she thought Obama was stalking her!!
OTOH....The Daily Mail claims she thought Obama was stalking her!!
Patriot- not to make light of a tragic situation, but having Obama everywhere at once makes me feel that way too.
So Obama has furloughed the Coast Guard Academy which means not only are classes and drills suspended, but some of the dorms are closed. Yeah, I don't get that one. I am not sure if that is true for the other military academies...but we are still at war, right?
Patriot, I wouldn't say no one outside the Beltway cares about the shutdown; it is having some effects, like the closing of national parks, which is throwing a monkey wrench in people's end-of-season vacation plans. But these are annoyances rather than hardships, and unless something happens to change that, this isn't going to be the big topic in people's day-to-day lives, which is why I say the Republicans shouldn't freak out that they're going to be destroyed on this issue.
I don't know how I feel about sitting back and letting ObamaCare implode on its own. On the one hand, it would certainly confirm what we've been saying all along, and in the public's eye; on the other hand, these things have a way of becoming legally entrenched, disasters or not, and so much of the Left is invested in this program that they simply would not allow it to collapse all the way. So that seems a risky move to me, too.
As far as all the craziness with the DC shooting yesterday is concerned, I didn't have a lot of time yesterday to follow it, so others are probably better-informed on it than me, but to me it just sounds like the same sort of drivel you hear about every week--yahoo driver causes trouble, gets taken down by police--only it happened within spitting distance of all the politicians, so it's a thing. It would sound callous to say I really don't care about it, but I have yet to find a reason to.
Andrew, that's true, they can't quite spin it as an automatic disaster for the country like they did with sequestration. They are going for the next best thing, though. I have no idea how many stories there have been about all the hard-working, salt-of-the-earth civil servants who have been laid off by heartless Republicans and are now going broke since all this started, but the media is really trying to tack hard in that direction. I don't know whether it will work, but given the perception of the DC area as getting fat off everyone else, they may have their work cut out for them.
I agree. I am sensing a large amount of "shutdown fatigue." Unless they are directly affected, people don't care. The public isn't at all panicked, so there's no reason for Republicans to be. It's to the point where people joke, "I wish my job would shut down for a few days."
Also, the public seems pretty sold on the idea that Obamacare isn't ready for prime time, even if they aren't completely sold on repeal. If the GOP message focuses on delay, they'll have the people firmly on their side. From there, a believable case can be made that a delayed program doesn't need to be fully funded. In politics, believable is more important than reasonable or feasible.
I like what Boehner and the Republicans are doing by sending stopgap bills to the Senate. It does make them look like they are working for a solution. It also turns around on Democrats their usual tactic of "take what we give you or else you're an obstructionist." It sits them in the hypocrisy seat.
Something I wish was said more, though I don't know if it would be lost on the public or not. Obama and the Democrats are trying to make preconditions of the very things we need to negotiate. You can't give a mouse a cookie and then expect to negotiate the cookie back. That's not how negotiation works and either the Dems don't understand that or, more likely, they're approaching this in very bad faith.
Finally, I see long-term opportunity in the shutdown, if anyone keeps track enough to grasp it. For the handful of things that do affect people, this could be taken up later as a platform to restructure certain government agencies to prevent shutdown in the case of a Washington stalemate. That's selling smaller government on the benefits.
One thing that has me curious about the incident in DC yesterday: they keep reporting that the driver rammed or tried to breach a barricade. I've been involved in a couple front-end collisions, so I know that even at low MPH impacts, crumple zones completely destroy the front end of a vehicle, rendering it undrivable. I once clipped a storm drain on an icy road and it ripped the wheel off my PT Cruiser, as well as set off the airbags. (That was the end of that.)
Furthermore, the barricades she supposedly ran into are designed to shred the front end of a vehicle, even without crumple zones. If the woman was seriously--or even half-heartedly--trying to take down a barricade, she could not have driven away and the damage to her vehicle would be incredibly obvious. From the videos I saw, I see no evidence of any extensive damage the vehicle. So I continue to question why so many officers had guns drawn on her prior to the chase.
2012 Infiniti G small overlap test
"Well, we're down in the muck of all this government shutdown crap. No one wanted to be here......"
Considering you put the words Don't Panic which you have placed on the front of your first instruction points T-Rav I will just some up my thoughts this way....
Anything that puts a Vogon on a permanent lunch break I am wholeheartedly for....
By the way, this is exactly the sort of thing Republicans should be trumpeting to high heaven EVERY TIME they are in front of the cameras. And this came from HuffPo, no less.
So there's your answer, Bev. That's why the Coast Guard academies are shut down, that's why they tried to keep veterans out of the WWII memorial, that's why they even closed our military cemetery in Normandy. It's all about optics.
tryanmax, exactly. That's exactly what Boehner and the House should continue to do. And they should point out the number of Democrats who have signed on to these stopgap measures. Translation: "We're trying to contain the damage here, only Reid won't let us." Keep ramping it up, to include everything except ObamaCare, and then let the whole country know it.
Also, I like your idea of using the opportunity to suggest a restructuring and downsizing the government in the name of future shutdown management. I only hope House leaders are aware of just how many cards they have to play here.
Indi, I'm glad you like my wording. :-) (Though I'm not exactly sure what a Vogon is...)
“That's exactly what Boehner and the House should continue to do. And they should point out the number of Democrats who have signed on to these stopgap measures.”
That seems to be their current strategy.
Here is a GOP press conference today:
LINK
The general message was that Republicans want to negotiate and the Democrats do not want to negotiate.
Cantor mentioned several budget resolutions the House is passing or is planning to vote on that will “fund national parks, the National Weather Service, clinical trials for cancer childhood patients, offer back-pay to furloughed federal workers, etc.”
Ok. Here is the right link:
LINK
Until this actually effects non-DC/ nonFed workers except for the few area vendors who cater (literally...) to federal workers, no one cares. Now Obama is threatening SSI payments...yes, that's his M.O. - threaten the old people with starvation. Yeah, WWII vets were really cowering...
So no one is talking today about how poorly the sign up the Obamacare has been. There's probably a lot of sticker shock. One would think with the government shut down and all, there would be more people signing up.
Kit, good on them. It's too soon to tell, but this might really turn out to be a "snatching victory from the jaws of defeat" scenario for the Republicans.
Indi, LOL! I thought of the Hitchhiker's Guide as well!
Representative Tom Cole (R-OK) said that the Democrats are saying "give us everything we want, then we'll negotiate."
Bev, That's the mistake Obama is making. No one is upset, so he keeps trying to find a way to make people upset and it looks like that's what he's trying. That is really bad PR and even the MSM doesn't seem to be buying it.
Well, the claim is that Social Security payments will stop if the fight reaches the debt ceiling.
T-Rav
All you need to know below: PS Don't forget your towel
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Description:
Here is what to do if you want to get a lift from a Vogon: forget it. They are one of the most unpleasant races in the Galaxy. Not actually evil, but bad-tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous. They wouldn't even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without orders - signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters. The best way to get a drink out of a Vogon is to stick your finger down his throat, and the best way to irritate him is to feed his grandmother to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. On no account should you allow a Vogon to read poetry at you.
Also, Camp David is still open. As are the military golf courses.
On the Hitchhiker's guide itself...
In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.
First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.
tryanmax, about the shooting of this woman, Miriam Carey, there´s a lot we don´t know and maybe I´ll change my opinion. But as of now the whole thing reeks of trigger-happy incompetence.
Was there no way a crowd of LEOs could have dealt with an unarmed woman with a child in a car except by riddling it and her with bullets? Within hours we heard of a "history of mental illness" - and a pretty vague one - as if that explains everything. Disturbed or not, I haven´t seen any evidence that she planned to "do something". Nor would it be the first time victims of government aggression have been smeared ex post facto.
Maybe she just panicked at the sight of the stormtroopers. Something about the whole thing makes me sick.
By the way, if Obama had (another) sister, she might look like Miriam.
El Gordo, Actually, if Obama had another sister, I tend to think she would look like this: LINK.
Of course they are, Kit. Of. Course. They. Are.
Indi--Oh, right, the Vogons. Hitchhiker's Guide and all that. In my defense, it's been a while since I've seen the movie, and I think Andrew's Zooey Deschannel-hatred somehow caused me to force it out of my mind, so I couldn't recall.
I would say they're a lot like who's running DC, but that would be an insult to our alien bureaucratic friends. Vogons aren't actively malicious (usually).
Question: If a Washington stalemate shuts down all sorts of government payments and services, why on earth would we want to subject healthcare to that?
Kit, I rather wonder if the Dems aren't actually hoping this will continue to the debt ceiling deadline, and then that will break the GOP's back. What will actually happen, of course, is anybody's guess; but Boehner needs to get out in front of that now by continuing these stopgap measures and showing everyone who's being serious.
tryanmax, you and I already know our own answer to that, and of course you'll never get a straight answer from Obama and his surrogates. But, yeah.
Ok let's review some facts regarding this Shutdown that seem to have been forgotten.
1) when the Dem's won the house in 2008 and they took office in 2009 the GOP minority went to them to offer their insights on potential compromises and the answer from Nancy Pelosi was "We Won". I seem to remember the same Nancy P in 2000 when Bush got into office demanding that true Politics meant you did not shut out the other party.
2) Obamacare was discussed in private closed meetings to which no Republican was invited. The GOP did not know anything about the law except to watch PR releases on MSNBC that the Dems that would strategically garner support from their base until a day or two before the vote when they had to release it.
No dem would have put up with this from us and even though the electorate in a red state district chose to vote GOP rather than Prog that representative still Won his district and those people theoretically have as much right to a say in government as anyone else. This is more of the disenfranchisement they accused Bush of in 2000 that never happened.
3) In the aftermath of this law a rage was fueled not just from the legislative overreach in the law but the Imperious manner it was forced on them. Since then the Dems have been harassing the Tea Party groups responsible for opposition to it using government agencies in an illegal manner to quash people's free speech rights........Imagine if Bush ever did that.
4) Now the Dems will brook no discussion of getting rid of the law, defunding the law, changing any part of the law even if just to fix it or even delaying it for one year so that the computer programs can be updated so that people can sign up for it.
This is something they will shut down the government in order to make a point. Plus anything they see that needs to be fixed they will have Obama sign executive orders that are illegal. Obama can delay this law for one year on the brush stoke of a pen, congress has to vote that into law.
Personally I don't even think for the Dem's this fight is about the AHA at all. I think it is simply a power struggle. They finally got control in 2008 which they did not have until 1980 and got drunk with power. They have done so many abusive and shady things in the government that they probably can't afford to have the other side even look at what they have done. Benghazi comes to mind.
This capital police incident is probably the overreacting of this part of the government because of the tone set by Obama. When you stand up and call Tea Party activists (average age 50+ who clean up the parks they use) Anarchists, Terrorists, Extremists, Wacko Birds, Dangerous... when you worry that every guy who drives a pick up truck has an assault rifle in his gun rack..... well then you get a mind set that tells you to open fire on an unarmed woman with a child in her car and ask questions later. It is an attitude of imperial elitism that guides people to this kind of thought process as OK.
Here's something irritating: It seems every couple of hours another Dem finds a microphone with a new turn-of-phrase. I've heard "hostage taking," "piecemeal," "cherry-picking," and now "lifeboat approach." Clearly, they fishing for a catchphrase they hope catches the public's attention.
Republicans need to get out in front of this nonsense and call it out. Someone needs to compile and rattle off the list of silly terms that Dems have thrown out and finish by saying that if the Dems spent as much time negotiating as they do running focus groups, maybe we'd have an end to this shutdown.
That's just what I'd do if I were on someone's communications staff.
BTW, if anyone has anything to add to the list, please feel free.
The 60 hardcore extremist Tea Party Republicans are the "Suicide Caucus".
"Legislative arsonists," courtesy of SanFranNan herself.
Incidentally, Indi, I feel compelled to point out that "suicide caucus" originally came from Charles Krauthammer, of all people. Which, he shouldn't have said that. He's upset that the House GOP ever took things to the point of shutdown in the first place, and I can understand that; but the liberals snapped this up right away and were only too happy to point out where it came from. A lapse in generally sound judgment.
Figures!
Variation on a theme: the Dems are describing the GOP's tactic of passing bills to restart parts of the government as releasing hostages one at a time. As if any hostage negotiator would ever say all or nothing.
tryanmax, I don't know why you're being so doubtful of the Smart Power. (eyeroll)
ANDREW! What have you done? Some things, once seen, can never be un-seen. Nor described, just hinted at in torrents of Lovecraftian language.
Thanks to you, in order to get my eyes working again, I´ll have to ask Beyonce to sit on them. Again.
Andrew.....What's to stop Preezy from exempting anyone under 30, without a full time job from the mandate? Once again, it looks like the brunt of this will fall upon the productive middle class and bring them inexorably closer to proles under the gov't jackboot.
Sorry El Gordo. LOL!
Patriot, The courts will stop him. But in any event, of course, this will fall on the middle class... all legislation does.
Well, after reading that exchange between Andrew and El Gordo, naturally I had to scroll up and click the link to see what you were talking about.
I hate you.
Andrew...The courts haven't stopped him from exempting all the other groups so far. What makes you think they will stop him on this exemption, or any others like it?
Patriot, First off, if he exempted those under 30, it would kill Obamacare... they are meant to pay the bills.
Secondly, the courts haven't acted because no one has asked them to. Courts don't jump into the process on their own. The first person to file suit just did a week ago. And I doubt he has standing because he's just a doctor. Why someone like Cruz hasn't challenge the exemptions in court is a good question... he would have standing.
Third, he's only granted a couple "exemptions" and those are temporary in nature because the system wasn't in place to enforce those things. The small business one I believe is 90 days only and the big business one is one year. Whether or not those will stand up, that I don't know. But given the short time frame, I suspect the remedy could not be granted before the exemptions expire.
If you're talking about Congress, forget it, it's not an exemption -- that's a talking point.
Tyranmax
Orwellianism 101
Dems will not allow an entire law to be passed. So the GOP breaks it into parts and passes them and it is the GOP taking hostages. Never mind that the only reason they break it into parts is the dems have taken the whole bill hostage.
Doublethink TripleNonPlusGood
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