Blood Oath

[Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa)] said the problem in 1995 wasn’t the government shutdown under President Bill Clinton – which occurred after Republicans attached Medicare cuts and other items to spending bills – it was that Republicans blinked when they feared the polls were turning against them.

“We must not blink,” he said, noting that money cannot be spent without the House voting to pass it. “If the House says no, it’s no.”

Their new tea party backers won’t tolerate anything less than a full repeal of the health care law, he said.

“They will leave us if we go wobbly,” he said. “I am worried about that, but that’s why I think it’s got to be a blood oath.”

First off, what form of whistle-speak is this whole “not blinking” or “you can’t blink” thing? It comes up with alarming regularity and has the unmistakable ring of that ever popular, not-actually-in-the-Bible-but-definitely-coming-soon The Rapture (what, you think the Tea Klan’s most sophisticated eschatologists have actually read the Bible? Or know who Cotton Mather was? They haven’t, don’t, and won’t).

Secondly, and much more importantly, government shutdown will be Job One of any new GOP majority in the House. Carve it in stone. This will be immediately followed by repeated articles of impeachment (regardless of what the Senate does with said articles, should the Senate remain Democratic, of course), based on said shutdown: e.g., the GOP will shut the government down, then blame Obama for said shutdown’s effects, and then accuse him of “high crimes and misdemeanors” relating to the ontogeny of said shutdown (he made us do it, more in sadness than in anger! We are the Patriots here! And we mustn’t blink. Ever. No blinking.). Watch and see. Preferably without any blinking.

[Steve King quote courtesy of the Washington Monthly]

Bait and Switch

agreatnation:

“Second, this is obviously — obviously — a setup. The whole point is to avoid a vote on the middle-class tax cuts while Democrats control the House; when and if Republicans regain control, they can refuse to let anything but a full extension reach the floor. So the goal is actually permanent extension; what they’re offering isn’t a compromise, it’s a trap.”

— Temporary Tax Cuts For The Rich? No. – NYTimes.com

Which is why I fully expect Democrats to start talking up the many benefits of compromising and offering a temporary extension of the tax cuts for the rich.

A truly crafty Democratic leadership would realize the fiscal exigency of letting all the tax cuts expire as soon as possible. Thus, you hit the GOP with stalling it now (while steadfastly offering your own package of middle class relief), and then let them block these same measures from the floor because of their desire to please the richest of the rich. A two-fer. Once the outcry reaches sufficient heights, you allow the GOP to allow a middle-class-only tax plan to reach the floor.

Naturally, this means that we’ll get full extension of everything forever and give it to the GOP using terms such as “compromise.”

[An] increasing share of national income [has] gone to the top 1 percent of earners since the 1970s, when their share was 8 percent to 9 percent. In the 1980s, it rose to 10 percent to 14 percent. In the late-’90s, it was 15 percent to 19 percent. In 2005, it passed 21 percent. By 2007, the last year for which complete data are available, the richest 1 percent were taking more than 23 percent of all income.
The richest one-tenth of 1 percent, representing 130,000 households, took in more than 11 percent of total income in 2007.
That does not leave enough spending power with the rest of the population to sustain a flourishing economy.

Bob Herbert discussing Robert Reich’s book Aftershock.
Generic GOP response to everything but the last line: So what?
Generic Democrat response to everything: If we just move those deck chairs to this side, and these to that…
Generic Population response, living it, far too busy to read about it: inchoate blood rage.
Making the current situation any clearer?

My concern is that she would use the agency for the purpose of promoting social justice

Senator Judd Gregg (R, NH) on what scares him about Elizabeth Warren working at the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Everyone knows that “justice” is the last thing we want out of this agency. How are the credit companies and pay-day lenders supposed to make a profit otherwise?

Wildly Different than Hitler

The relevant letter (e.g. the one containing the words “separation”, “church”, and “state”) from Thomas Jefferson to “messers Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.”

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. [Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from prescribing even those occasional performances of devotion, practiced indeed by the Executive of another nation as the legal head of its church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.] Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association assurances of my high respect & esteem.

(signed) Thomas Jefferson
Jan.1.1802.

Indeed, these are undeniably different in any and every sense of interpretation possible:

A.

“separation between Church & State”

B.

“separation of church and state”

Mr. Glen Urquhart, the GOP nominee for the race for Delaware’s lone House seat has attributed the latter to Hitler and the Nazi. Jefferson, you can plainly see, wanted a purely Christian republic on these shores. This is why he used the word “between.”
Adding Judeo to the Judeo-Christian formulation is simply an example of American Exceptionalism and is largely predicated on Jefferson’s own ruthless and unyielding support for the state of Israel. And, of course, there’s always a little Madison in there.

Said it once, will say it many times in the future: the facts do not matter. Plan and act accordingly.

The exact phrase ‘separation of church and state’ came out of Adolf Hitler’s mouth. That’s where it comes from. The next time your liberal friends talk about separation of church and state, ask them why they’re Nazis.

Glen Urquhart, the GOP nominee for the race for Delaware’s lone House seat.
This is the agenda. Never forget it, never doubt it.

Serious People

Obama administration: Senate Leader Mitch McConnell’s tax plan […] to permanently extend the Bush tax cuts for America’s millionaires and billionaires would nearly double the projected deficit by adding $4 trillion to it over the next decade. And [the GOP is] pretending that they would pay for it through a projected spending freeze, that fails to mention what they would freeze or cut, and that would only save $300 billion over that same period of time…
Senior GOP adviser’s response: It must be tough to have to work in [the administration’s] press shop and explain that letting people keep their own money is bad, and having to explain why you think the Bush administration economic policy is bad, but you want to make it permanent. Though I’m still curious: how much does their plan add to the deficit? Is it three trillion or 3.3 trillion?

Impressive (adj.)

Kate Dickens, aid to Mike Castle: [Christine O’Donnell] is a con artist who won by lying about Castle’s positions and her own life. Out of state support was enough to pull her through yesterday so she can rely on it through November.
Mitt Romney: Now is the time for Republicans to rally behind their nominee, Christine O’Donnell. She ran an impressive campaign. I believe it is important we support her so we can win back the U.S. Senate this fall.

We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!

Karl Rove, as reported by Ron Suskind, “talking to an aide about some political stratagem in some state that had gone awry and a political operative who had displeased him.”
Filed under context.

Everything he’s saying is unfactual. He’s the same so-called political guru that predicted I wasn’t going to win. And we won, and we won big. So I think he’s eating some humble pie.

Christine O’Donnell referring to somebody named Karl Rove. I imagine this will go over well in the Hallowed Halls.