Tag: tea klan

It’s Congress that does the spending. The president is prohibited to do that. If he had the power to do that he would effectively be a dictator. There would be no reason for Congress to even come to Washington, D.C. He would be making the spending decisions … Clearly that’s unconstitutional.

Michele Bachmann, speaking to CNN’s American Morning.
Every now and then something true slips out of the GOP’s fetid maw. But, by all means, let’s pretend Obama and his “blank check” are what caused the current entirely invented “crisis.”
CNN’s headline for this small story? Why, of course it’s Bachmann Warns of ‘Dictator’ Obama. What other choice did they have?

At least the tile is cool

And so it’s (finally) come to this. Democratic Senators and various other denizens of Washington DC have recalled that, hey, that Constitution of ours specifically has something to say about the national debt:

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law […] shall not be questioned

Though a post-Civil War shim, it seems pretty applicable to this non-Constitutional-scholar. As the linked article states:

This is an issue that’s been raised in some private debate between senators as to whether in fact we can default, or whether that provision of the Constitution can be held up as preventing default,“ Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), an attorney, told The Huffington Post Tuesday. "I don’t think, as of a couple weeks ago, when this was first raised, it was seen as a pressing option. But I’ll tell you that it’s going to get a pretty strong second look as a way of saying, ‘Is there some way to save us from ourselves?’”

By declaring the debt ceiling unconstitutional, the White House could continue to meet its financial obligations, leaving Tea Party-backed Republicans in the difficult position of arguing against the plain wording of the Constitution. Bipartisan negotiators are debating the size of the cuts, now in the trillions, that will come along with raising the debt ceiling.

Is it really left to me to fill in how this path ends? I think the debt ceiling is as stupid as the next guy, and the hostage-taking debate over “whether or not” we raise it: even dumber and, frankly, dangerous to the economy. Obviously we are going to raise it. Every plan, from Ryan on down includes raising it. There is literally no other way forward regardless of your non-zero target for future federal budgets. The GOP and their media enablers act like this isn’t so, but it is. Sorry if I was the first one to let you in on that.
But: if you just blow through the entirely arbitrary ceiling and continue on as if nothing happened, mayhem will ensue. You’ll have to fight it out in court, where party-line rulings will be the norm, much as is happening with the far less divisive ACA or the Wisconsin brouhaha (and that’s saying something; WI included a Supreme Court Chambers strangling). The media, never one for issues with much complexity greater than, say, “Sam and Dianne: will they or won’t they?”, will simply report the horse race (that’s six rulings for a debt ceiling, seven against! Reactions at the top of the hour! But first, somebody’s cooch was briefly visible!!!). Ultimately, after a few years of this living hell for anyone that ever comes into contact with so much as a single federal dollar, the issue reaches the Supreme Court…and, well, then it basically comes down to who’s out sick that day and the particular details of Scalia’s ever-tortured logic. And he’s never out sick.
The Congress, meanwhile, will be irrevocably embroiled in endless impeachment proceedings or attendant “investigations” and simply gridlocked when not. You think anyone in the GOP is going to vote to release one cent after the debt ceiling hobby horse is simply taken away forever? Unless 2012 suddenly delivers Democratic super-majorities in both chambers, you’re shit out of luck. Then, substantive control of the government and its many critical functions basically boils down to Obama, individual departments, or the military essentially seizing control from and simply ignoring a Congress and broader government that has demonstrably ceased to operate and is endangering both itself and the lives of its citizens. I’m sure the markets will take this development with all the sober assessment that any Master of the Universe could muster. This outcome would please the Tumblr anarchy division, but few others. Frankly I’m just not quite ready to live out my remaining years trading pelts down by the nearest navigable river.

Government in this country, in any democracy, is ultimately about mutual consent. The minority has to consent to being governed by the majority. That is the only way that elections mean things, and because there are fewer of Major Party X as a result of said election(s), the minority party gets to contribute to but not control the legislative agenda and its terms. Since Obama’s election, an electoral landslide and the first non-plurality win in ~20 years, we’ve been operating without the consent of the GOP. It’s as though he stole the thing. Yes, the GOP has occasionally given consent, in fits and starts, when forced to (most often this came as a result of simply being overidden by then-large Democratic majorities). They’ve grudgingly agreed to a few votes that had to happen, but nothing else. By and large, though, the GOP has been allowed to operate in pure obstructionist fashion with no reprisal. Generally speaking, if you don’t take part in the act of governing in Congress, your ideas simply aren’t included. That simply hasn’t happened here. They’ve obstructed in numerous ostentatious ways and but also always gotten what they were demanding in the end even though they withdrew from the “governing majority” at some point in the process each time. It’s what Duncan Black refers to as the “Lucy and the football” system: extract compromises and painful alterations on the given bit of legislation, withdraw support, blame Democrat for problems caused by compromises and painful alterations. If possible: actually reverse position on issue such that you now oppose the very thing you demanded in the kabuki “serious adults talking” phase of the legislative sausage making.

Sooner or later, that’s the problem we have to fix. The majority, be it Democratic, Republican, Tea Klan, Quantum Presbyterian, or whatever has to be able to govern. Period. Uniform obstruction of all the business of government is unsustainable. It’s frankly incredible that we’ve stumbled along for this amount of time already. Only the public can force the change, though, whether through elections or sheer popular pressure (e.g. standing on the steps of the Capitol with pitchforks and torches). With a MSM showing no interest in educating the public as to the stakes, the debate, or even the vaguest terms of the issues at hand, it may just take the Social Security and military pay checks (and everything else) not showing up one morning to make the needed awakening happen. And the sooner we go through a convulsive spasm to clear the systemic poisons that currently have us writhing on the bathroom floor of democracy, the better off we’ll be.

At least the tile is cool

Bachmann on GMA

Stephanopoulos: In your announcement you said ‘my voice is part of a movement to take back our country.’ From whom?
Bachmann: Well, from the people all across the nation. […]
Stephanopoulos: […] the Pulitzer Prize winning website, Politifact, has found that you have the worst record of making false statements of any of the leading contenders. And I wondered if you wanted to take a chance to clear up some of your past statements. For example earlier this year you said that the Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence worked tirelessly to end slavery. Now with respect Congresswoman, that’s just not true. Many of them including Jefferson and Washington were actually slave holders and slavery didn’t end until the Civil War.
Bachmann: Well you know what’s marvelous is that in this country and under our constitution, we have the ability when we recognize that something is wrong to change it. And that’s what we did in our country. We changed it. We no longer have slavery. That’s a good thing. And what our Constitution has done for our nation is to give us the basis of freedom unparalleled in the rest of the world.
Stephanopoulos: I agree with that…
Bachmann: That’s what people want…they realize our government is taking away our freedom.
Stephanopoulos: But that’s not what you said. You said that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery.
Bachmann: Well if you look at one of our Founding Fathers, John Quincy Adams, that’s absolutely true. He was a very young boy when he was with his father serving essentially as his father’s secretary. He tirelessly worked throughout his life to make sure that we did in fact one day eradicate slavery….
Stephanopoulos: He wasn’t one of the Founding Fathers – he was a president, he was a Secretary of State, he was a member of Congress, you’re right he did work to end slavery decades later. But so you are standing by this comment that the Founding Fathers worked tirelessly to end slavery?
Bachmann: Well, John Quincy Adams most certainly was a part of the Revolutionary War era. He was a young boy but he was actively involved.
Stephanopoulos: Well let me move on […]
Lemkin: You cannot “move on.” Media Pro Tip: when faced with statements like these, just consider the rest of your planned interview over. Relentlessly dig on this point. JQA was nine years old at the outbreak of the American Revolution. Actively involved? Founding Father? You’ve got to hammer these points, George. Same goes for Bob Schieffer; if she’s actively not answering your questions, don’t just note it in passing at the end of the show, stop asking new questions until the one on the table is addressed. You have all the time in the world for video online. Start using it.

I’m dying for Atlas to Shrug. Go off into your bunker and leave the piles of paper leverage the myth of the self-made man is built upon where they are so good people who selflessly believe in each other and this country can clean up the mess. I have a feeling we’ll be just fine, thank you, prophecies of doom and dollar signs etched in the sky notwithstanding.

correlationstonone, writing in Making nothing out of something: Self-Indulgent Programming Note 
Holy Zombie Lord Jesus: YES. Let me heartily second that motion that the Tea Klanners and all their like-minded friends should just Shrug already. Go live in Galt’s Gulch, live the dream, let the market sort you out, and spend the rest of your ample free time quarrying some stone or whatever it is good objectivists do for fun. I’d pay for closed-circuit coverage of it.
Yes, in gold.

It is important to make sure that very graphic photos of [bin Laden] who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence or as a propaganda tool.

[…]

We don’t trot out this stuff as trophies. The fact of the matter is, this is somebody who was deserving of the justice that he received.

[…]

…we [are] monitoring worldwide reaction. There is no doubt that Osama bin Laden is dead. Certainly there is no doubt among al Qaeda members that he is dead. So we don’t think that a photograph in and of itself is going to make any difference. There are going to be some folks who deny it. The fact of the matter is, you will not see bin Laden walking on this earth again.

President Barack Obama, in remarks to Steve Kroft for an upcoming 60 Minutes.
I agree, and I find that bit about al Qaeda members lack of doubt to be particularly interesting, but I still think this course of action only invites a whole new wave of “Deathers.” Not that they’d believe anything up to and including bin Laden’s head on a pike in the middle of a DC roundabout (he was dead ages ago and kept on ice; this is an elaborate biological replicate of what appears to be his head; where’s the body!?!). Still, something has got to be put out there such that this crap is mostly shut down. The nonsense with the birth certificate fairly proves that it will never, ever go away until the MSM and specifically FOXnews is just too embarrassed to mention it anymore.
Why not video of the raid up to the frame before he is shot? Surely this would be proof positive and seems likely to exist. Assuming that’s not forthcoming, I’d say it’s only days before House and Senate Republicans start in with the “well, I take him at his word but…” crap.

Yelling at Congresspeople

squashed:

The summer before last, Republican groups made huge political gains by showing up at Townhall meetings and acting atrociously. Now Democrats want to do the same thing.

They shouldn’t.

When I saw that MoveOn.org was organizing the same sort of events to target Republicans, I initially felt a certain glee. This will go well for the left. Then I remembered the August 2009 town halls meeting I attended. I am wholly in favor of constituents challenging their representatives—even if it makes the representatives uncomfortable. I have little use for any sense of propriety that gets in the way of a robust and honest political dialog—but what happened at that townhall meeting wasn’t political discourse.

It was base. It was incoherently mean, screamingly ugly. The same hateful energy responsible for every crime ever committed by a mob was on display. It was the sort of event that makes you wonder whether humanity was a mistake.

Now MoveOn.org will unleash the same sort of nastiness at the Republicans. It will capture a media narrative. It will be good for the Democrats in 2012. But it will be bad for the country. They shouldn’t do it.

Presumably it all depends on how it’s done. The reason the Tea Klan stuff was so ugly (to me, anyway) was the pure low-information spectacle of it all; the purest example of this being stuff like “keep your guvmint claws off my Medicare” and the like. If MoveOn shows up and just screams people attending and the House member running the thing down: then Squashed and I are in complete agreement, it will have been a bad idea and bad for long-term political discussion in the country.

But, if MoveOn shows up and states the case, calmly and upon a foundation of facts-based disagreement (e.g. the GOP plans to end Medicare in every meaningful way; however, a program called Medicare will still be there and here is a partial list of the reasons that move will be very, very bad deal for the elderly and infirmed…): then it is all for the good.

Birther Boogaloo: You Tell Me

Reality Check: Okay, now, what are the specific requirements in the [TN Ballot Access] bill?
TN State Senator Mae Beavers: That they have to have the long-form birth certificate.
RC: What is the long-form birth certificate?
Beavers: Now, you’re asking me to get into a lot of things that I haven’t really looked into yet.
RC: […] Are you aware that a lot of states now only give the short-form birth certificate?
Beavers: No, I only know about Tennessee, and I was born in Alabama. So I only know what I have seen.
RC: What if someone was not born in a hospital? It wouldn’t have an attending physician signature, so they wouldn’t be eligible to run in Tennessee if this bill passes. Is that correct?
Beavers: But they would have a birth certificate.
RC: Sure, but your bill doesn’t say birth certificate. It says “an original long-form birth certificate that includes date and place of birth, name of the hospital, the attending physician, and signatures of the witnesses.”
Beavers: And that’s normally what’s on a long-form birth certificate.
RC: It used to be, but as a matter of fact, the state of Hawaii, where President Obama was born, for people born since, I believe, around 2001, only gives the time of birth, the name of the parents, and the place of birth. Are you aware of the section of the Constitution called the full faith and credit clause? It’s in Article 4, Section 1.
Beavers: Yes.
RC: Well, do you know what it says about state documents?
Beavers: You tell me.
RC: It says that any state is required to accept the documents from another state. So that basically means that Tennessee has to accept a valid birth certificate from Hawaii or any other state.
Beavers: I have no knowledge of short-form birth certificates in Hawaii.
RC: […] Mitt Romney may not be eligible under this bill. Are you aware of that?
Beavers: No, I wasn’t.
RC: Well, George Romney, his father, was born in Mexico. Mexico confers citizenship by jus soli, which is place of birth. So he was born with dual citizenship, and it also passes down. Unless George Romney somehow gave up his Mexican citizenship, Mitt Romney has dual citizenship.
Beavers: Obviously you’ve studied this whole thing.

Health care is another matter. That has to be taken very methodically because people’s lives are affected. Nobody’s life is affected by NPR. Nobody’s life is affected by Planned Parenthood. These are options.

Bill O’Reilly, apparently believing the notion that Planned Parenthood is merely the place one goes for on-demand partial birth abortions and the like.
Pop quiz: Number of federal dollars used by Planned Parenthood to fund abortion?
That would be ZERO. The Hyde amendment way back in 1976 made that illegal.
The right wing that increasingly makes up and already makes all important policy decisions for the GOP is after contraception. Always has been, always will be. In their world women are chattel who cannot and should not be allowed to make decisions about their own fertility, especially since all sex should be reproductive and within a “traditional” marriage. Anything else is a threat to the GOP approved sanctity of marriage and inevitably results in men marrying box turtles and the like.

We’re Comfortable Together

PZ Myers represents on all things marriage:

If we strip marriage of the asymmetry of power, as we must if we allow men to marry men and women to marry women, then we also strip away the man and wife, dominant and submissive, owner and owned, master and servant relationship that characterizes the conservative view of marriage. This is what [right wingers] want to preserve, and this is what they are talking about when people like Gingrich echo those tired phrases about “Judeo-Christian values” and complain that their “civilization is under attack”. And it is, when we challenge their right to treat one partner, so-called, as chattel.

And once you look at it that way, you see no abuse of their values when Gingrich goes tomcatting around—he’s simply asserting his traditional privilege as the Man.

The whole thing is really indispensable.

We’re Comfortable Together