“...not the new FDR, but the new Gorbachev”

Obama presiding over a doomed party?

Every vital element of the Democrats’ coalition — unions, government workers, government contractors, "entitlement” consumers — requires constant increases in payments, grants and consulting contracts.  Without those payments, they don’t sign checks to re-elect Democrats.

And when other peoples’ money runs out...?

Interesting idea, which James Pethokouris almost gets:

Obama’s tax obsession becomes understandable when you realize the long game he’s playing: Big Taxes to fund Big Government.  Decade after decade.  See, it’s an almost universal belief among left-of-center journalists, economists, policymakers and politicians that Americans must pay higher taxes in coming years to cover... all sorts of brand new social spending and green "investment.”

...although he misses all the "clients” whom such spending "buys.”

Related:

Minters via: Ace

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Seems there’s not much “hope for change” out there...

Insta-poll: So what will happen with the debt ceiling fight?

LATER: Bill Quick leads the Cynical Brigade:

Coming Up Soon

Long winded explanations from various gentry GOP shit sandwiches and RINOsaurs about how "this was the best deal we could get.  Trust us.  Vote for us next year. We have only your best interests in our hearts.”

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Not the same thing

So the House Republicans failed to pass HR.2417 (the lightbulb bill) last Tuesday, but then they redeemed themselves on Friday, so all’s right with the world, right?

Not so fast, Kemosabe: HR.2417 (which would have passed easily had it not been for the leadership‘s suspend-the-rules cuteness) would have repealed the 2012 lightbulb ban. Period. Gone.

Friday’s vote merely blocks the ban’s enforcement (by denying funding), but leaves Fred Upton’s 2007 efficiency standards in place.

Meaning that to keep the ban from going into effect, we will have to write (or amend) a similar restriction into every subsequent budget. Every year.

(And of course there’s always the possibility of some "public interest” group getting a court decision mandating enforcement, regardless.)

Which leaves the situation even more uncertain than the impossible conditions test that Michele Bachmann’s (HR.849) attempt would have imposed.

With the horizon stretching only as far as the next congress, you can bet that there will be no domestic investment in manufacturing old-standard bulbs. Of course, the uncertainty presents no obstacle to importing them from China.  More jobs shifted overseas!

Unfortunately, some of the smart people out there haven’t understood this wrinkle yet.

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Decision point approaching...

Bill Quick:

Imagine if Hitlerian fascism had presented itself as a religion: "You must worship the ancient German storm gods, who require that you conquer the world in their name, and impose their rules controlling all aspects of individual living and worshiping on all nations and peoples.”

So, what is this?  A religion?  Or a ruling ideology with a religious component?  And how should you treat it in terms of American notions of freedom of religion?

These are questions that America’s current reflexive regime of diversity, political correctness, and simple-minded judgment that a religion is a religion is a religion are ill-equipped to grapple with.  But we need to face these issues - or face the potential consequences of our intellectual cowardice.

The question is Islam.  The decision point will be here much sooner than most people anticipate.

Related:

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Thanks for reminding me why I don’t have a cable subscription

Ron Radosh:

AMC’s Breaking Bad — Simply the Best Program on Television
...starring Bryan Cranston as Walter White, a high-school chemistry teacher turned top of the line drug kingpin...which he thought he could sell to addicts with the aid of a former student drop-out, who... was also an addict himself...

As Walt gets in deeper, embracing his criminality and signing on to run Gus’ pharmaceutical-grade-meth superlab, Breaking Bad becomes something incredibly compelling

Yuk.

Oh, BTW, Ron...?

With a family to support, and desperately in need of funds to support them, he decided to use his knowledge of chemistry to develop a method of cooking pure crystal meth...

 ...Who wants White’s family to fall into economic collapse because he was given the bad deal of incurable lung cancer?

Celebrating sociopathy while advancing the agitprop that for the "unfortunate,” 21st century America is indistinguishable from 19th century France. Horsefeathers. (And Walter White ain’t no Jean Valjean, either.)

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Clipfile - July 16, 2011

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Indoctrination outweighs education

...at the University of California:

Even as UC campuses jettison entire degree programs and lose faculty to competing universities, one fiefdom has remained virtually sacrosanct: the diversity machine. Not only have diversity sinecures been protected from budget cuts, their numbers are actually growing.

But that’s their primary mission, innit?

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The Establishment is heard from

Megan McArdle, concern troll:

Jonathan Podhoretz reads a Quinnipiac poll showing that by a margin of 48-34, the public is going to blame Republicans and not Obama if we don't raise the debt ceiling, and joins the ranks of the Washington sellouts:

At some point, those who believe it will be acceptable to go to August 3 without an increase in the debt limit, as well as those who believe the politics favor the Republicans, are going to have to reckon with the fact that there are no data points supporting their beliefs.

Wrongo, Jonny Boy.  I’ll see your poll, and raise you one.  Here’s Gallup:

Despite agreement among leaders of both sides of the political aisle in Washington that raising the U.S. debt ceiling is necessary, more Americans want their member of Congress to vote against such a bill than for it, 42% vs. 22%, while one-third are unsure.
...
A follow-up question finds Americans more sympathetic to the Republicans’ argument than Obama’s.  Specifically, when asked to say which is their greater concern, 51% say raising the debt ceiling without plans for major future spending cuts concerns them more, while 32% are more concerned with the risk of a major economic crisis if Congress does not take action.

...and here’s Gallup, again:

Registered voters by a significant margin now say they are more likely to vote for the "Republican Party’s candidate for president” than for President Barack Obama in the 2012 election, 47% to 39%.  Preferences had been fairly evenly divided [earlier] this year...

...?

Oh well, back to Megan:

I know I’m beating a dead horse at this point, but I continue to be mystified by what the base, the activists, and the politicians who are pushing the "no new revenue” stance hope to accomplish.

Stop the spending, maybe?  Get the budget under control?  Save the country?

Let’s start by pointing out the obvious: the Democrats do not show any signs of caving.

Therefore, Republicans are supposed to roll over?

They have offered what seem...

(note that word)

...to be very attractive deals, and been turned down.  Think you’re going to get a more attractive deal?  Every time another poll like this comes out, your bargaining position gets worse.

According to...?

Anyway, Megan goes on to explain (at great length) why every last item in the current federal budget is absolutely untouchable, and that, regardless of what they do, Republicans will be "blamed" for whatever happens:

Voters are telling pollsters they’re going to blame the Republicans for the shutdown. And the spending cuts you're going to do won't even be that popular with the tea party, who aren’t much more enthusiastic about Medicare/Medicaid cuts than the rest of the country.

Winding up with the Horrible Conclusion;

To me that sounds like "huge Democratic victory in 2012".

Oh dear.  Its hopeless.  Why, if only those Republicans understood what is possible, if only they knew their place.  The whole situation is unsolvable, so might as well give it up.

Sound familiar?

It should.  What’s going on here is that we’re starting to hear (indirectly) from what used to be called the "Eastern Establishment:” all those individuals and groups whose income or existence leeches off an ever-expanding federal government.  You know: The beltway lobbyists and their clients, the "independent" groups that trade government grants for agitation for more government power,^[1] the corporations protected by a webs of regulations... those guys.  They’re worried that any move toward a smaller, less intrusive federal government could mean loss of their perks, bennies, and power^[2] and right now protecting those perks, bennies, and power means convincing the Republicans to - again- forget their principles and cut another good old Standard D.C. Compromise, i.e., Give the Democrats What They Want.  So they’re calling on their beltway-press buddies to help.  And so we’re seeing pieces like Megan’s.

The perennial question of why on earth the Republican party should be taking advice from a press that is increasingly an arm of the Democrat party is above my pay grade (for today), but from my seat out here in the heartland it sure looks like "Republican intransigence” is excactly what the public is asking for, and the presidential polling is reflecting it.

Now if only the Republicans can figure that out...

-----

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Clipfile - July 15, 2011

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All you need to know about Mitch McConnell

Stacy McCain:

Like Trent Lott and Bob Dole before him, Mitch is the Senate Republican leader, and the job of the Senate Republican leader is to make conservative voters say to themselves: "What the hell is the point in voting for those worthless RINO douchebags?  Might as well stay home on Election Day!”

It is a fact of history that no one has ever tried to assassinate a Senate Republican leader — not even the wildest madman would bother wasting ammunition on such worthless creatures.

As they say, RTWT.

Related:

Previous Mitchitude:

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