In 2011, the State of the Union is ____________!

embargo broken! everyone react now!

http://nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/exclusive-obama-to-declare-the-rules-have-changed--20110125

chris matthews just told odonnell there will be a presidential address on gun control, a separate one, to be scheduled. news!

NFLonTheHill
If State of Union Address were on NFL Network, we would be in 4th and final hour of pre-Address show.

is this the new politics thread?

No politics in a SOTU thread -- just histrionics, like the Oscars thread.

i wonder if boehner will cry

stoked for the madness

dude is actually sort of funny now that he's free

keitholbermann
Little known Pop Culture reference: Sen. Ben Nelson was indeed the model for Stimpy of "Ren And Stimpy" #SOTU

matthews has some extra special contempt for bachmann, it's amazing

odonnell calls the tea party caucus 'the freakiest section of the congress'

lol!! xp

roberts looks old as fuck

LETS DO THIS

...........sorry, i got excited

so is this like a speed dating mixer or

i'm kinda really really loving maddow anchoring this instead of matthews or even keith

Ladies and gentlemen, we have POTUS

i'm watching this at whitehouse . gov --- what's better

no tv

cspan.org?

you could go to tvpc.com, pick a broadcast station

just you know, she has her own rhythms and whatnot that aren't full of the inane misogynist ad libs of yr matthews, say

God, Ginsberg looks old.

oh shit is it just starting now? is that a live stream on whitehouse.gov

y

coooooooooool

The applause feels muted; I guess it's because of the new cafeteria-style seating.

daniel hernandez heard there's no gun control in the speech and he is pisssssssseed

Sophistry so far.

yeah

what do you want to be when you grow up!!!!!!

He's leaning too hard on Soaring Rhetoric.

sounds like a graduation speech imo

The Internet! The Wright Brothers!

internet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Justice Anthony Kennedy spotted watching "Jersey Girl" on his smart phone

Scientists are as we speak building tubes for these magical interwebs

roofies are the answer

roofies and shingles

Biden making "this facial expression" so hard.

our government giving you shingles

lol that extended shot of the allen bros was hell of uncomfortable

what's obama going to do about the possible nfl lockout is what i want to know

boehner mentally making his shopping list

Xxpost YES

Tom Coburn seen picking nits out of Susan Collins' hair.

lmao did someone just go "wroooooooong"

Chief Justice Roberts reaching under robe for a quick "stroke."

Boehner totally rocking this year's Pantone color (honeysuckle)

Chu chu choose clean energy

fuckin 'publicans & their DIRTY ENERGY

Alito is in Hawaii! How I envy him.

THE POLITICO might WIN THE DAY, but.. THE FUTURE

We have to educate our children by giving them education.

*Shot of random high school girl*

Obama: America's students are doing terribly!

18-2120 TCX

boehner mentally making his shopping list

beer
wine
marlboro reds

NO CELEBRATE SUPERBOWL WINNER

xpost lol

No OK President Obama u kno I luv u but the winner of the Super Bowl IS more important than the winner of the science fair, if the Green Bay Packers win.

Or unless Aaron Rodgers wins the science fair.

Science fairs don't win superbowls pfft

Yaaaaay suck it raw NCLB!

Aaron Rodgers becomes potus if GB wins superbowl, that's why he's hating on the Superbowl winner

ohno, more about the need for Standards in education reform

bob somerby's head just exploded

lol @ king and weiner sitting together

xp god you and a rodg

nothing is more important than the super bowl. cmon, the rooney family got him elected POTUS in the first place he should know

boehner just looks bored as all hell

In America, teachers are known as "assholes"

is that....a teacher?

WE NEED YOU (to cry yourself to sleep at night)

aha, STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and math)

bunch of gov't nerds are excited now

producer has no idea how to cover this scattered applause

lol "that's me"

yay Cathy that's you

UH OH...DEMOCRATIC TALKING POINT ENTERING SPEECH FOR FIRST TIME

* cut to shot of Tiger Mother lady *

Obama: We need to believe our children are capable of anything. And we need to make them believe, by enacting cruel, humilating psychological tortures on them until they succeed as we would like.

arizona senators who look like old lesbians

Hahahah

Biden still making the face. Yay dream act! Feelin it for like 35 seconds!

Connecticut and South Carolina senators who look like old lesbians

ELECTRICITY. THE INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM.

Boehner looks like he is moments away from an eye roll or an "oh COME ON"

The fuck is this guy on about? Presidents usually wait until the second term to discuss crumbling highways and electricity.

Yay no pat down

Bullet Traiiiiiiin!

SUPERTRAIN!

pretty sure those routes are not underway in the midwest

wait high speed rail connects to the Internet on a farm in Iowa?

KNOCK DOWN BARRIERS

ROBO-PONIES

I think there's like 10 miles of track underway in Bakersfield

Orrin Hatch just wiped dandruff off his shoulders

haha boehner's FACE

kind of sad to hear the president say the words "face to face video chats with their doctors"

face to face video chats with death panels

I like that the California bullet train is underway even though the state is super-broke. Like I was as excited about voting yes on Proposition Bullet Train in 2008 as I was voting no on Prop 8.

keep thinking there's a jumbotron in there

Boehner's face = Homer Simpson shouting "BOOOORING"

Telemedicine is v useful in some situations! Especially in places where tertiary care is really, really far away from the patient.

boehner is made of sculpting clay

fuck yeah child labour laws!

republicans be sittin

Biden just unbuckled his belt and farted

Hahah

Boehner is made of Bain de Soleil

Kind of looks like Biden and Boehner are holding hands under the table

i'm actually really really happy he just made the point that like

regulation is why kids aren't choking on coal dust in the minivan

yah telemedicine is dope imo

yeah totes i am liking this speech; clarity of thought imo

Without electricity those great songwriters Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Niel Peart, would not have written a song.

Kinda want that Boehner eye roll as a .gif

OH MY GOD BACHMANN

SHE LOOKS LIKE A ROBOT

The Secretary of Defense and his genitals

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/2636/sotucmon.jpg

the balls of Robert Gates

cmonson.jpg

defense secretary handing over his scrotum as we speak

OMIGOD. Obama gave up on that clunky airplane metaphor before he even finished it.

scrotum = excess weight

bumpy landing

hahahahahaha that airplane metaphor was fukkin terrible

sibelius looks PISSED

boner was all 'r u serious'

Hey, I'll tell you what. You can get a good look at a butcher's ass by sticking your head up there. But, wouldn't you rather to take his word for it?

"it's like if there was a plane...ah fuck it who cares"

p sure malpractice reform wouldn't save all that much money but w/e

hey, it's aqua buddha

not being heard by me!

oh my god rand paul is gonna try to run for president one day i saw it in his eyes just now

thx morbs we know

Yeah, it is kinda sucky to continually hear "what we need to do to fix America's medical system is to eliminate the 1% of costs we burn on malpractice suits" but I guess it is still 1%.

"Let me take this one step further..."

No, don't, please.

hey guys is morbs watching this speech?

oh snap sorry, thx for the update

wait, is rep keith ellison twittering about this from the chamber? hahaha

I like that the theme of this speech seems to be "Win the Future". It makes the State of the Union sound like a Nike ad.

Nothing worse than waiting to hear people applaud your second-rate punch line.

pretty sure those routes are not underway in the midwest

Chicago to St louis, not high speed rail as the rest of the world understands it, 1960s speeds.

Take my wife please

smoked!!!!!!!!!!

Recovering from the airplane metaphor with a salmon-based zings.

Fish jokes alway get the crowd back

ah. Ed i was thinking of the proposed CHI-MKE-MPLS high-speed line that's been nixed (or promised to be nixed) by the new WI gov

this is one of those speeches that all the pundits bitch and complain about, and then 3 days later they do a poll and it turns out that regular guys in scranton, pennsylvania are like KUDOS

"Hey why don't you Tweet that bill"

Way to go, Bam: piss off your whole Cabinet.

lol biden

"this GUY, this fuckin guy"

http://skew.dailyskew.com/uploaded_images/Jim-Halpert-786091.png

KUDOS

"Let's look to Iraq, where so many men and women have returned without heads..."

not regular guy enough. i mean a chris matthews regular guy.

bamma taking a STRONG STAND against earmarks

You will force him to take this pen and write the same speech Clinton did in '94.

"coming to an end"

okay that american muslims thing came kind of out of nowhere

god i wish there was a camera trained on boehner the whole time. give me boehner cam!!!

ed rendell regular, annoying regular xxxxxp

Even Tom Coburn thinks Moslems are people!

whoah, totally.

(apparently i'm like 10 secs behind)

lol moslems

Some of these links are a little non sequiturish

http://img810.imageshack.us/img810/2161/thisguyf.jpg

seriously can you believe THIS GUY

biden: happy to be here!

idk who that joint chief on the far left was but he looked mad skeptical

haha THIS GUY

my sister finds boehner handsome btw can we mock her

didnt deliver "we will defeat you" with the action movie panache it needed

is your sister Michelle Bachmann?

WE WILL BUILD IT AND YOU WILL COME

josh marshall: "For sake of clarity, I will from now on abbreviate 'win the future' as WTF."

Obama to terrorists: We are going to win the future, sux 4 u

lol moslems

this is what we called em when Muhammad Ali was the only one.

my sister finds boehner handsome btw can we mock her

yes of course by your leave

HILLARY <3

thanks to our help, fewer afghans are...well, there are fewer afghans

well don't just abandon them like on the street

Boehner is Don Draper, Used Car Salesman.

The geopolitical importance of the El Salvador alliance.

Lol kev

what is it with this guy turning A's into AH'S. SU-DAHN. TALIBAHN.

i wonder if the feeling i get when o pronounces country names correctly is the same one rightbloggers got when bush said "nuculer"

lol al

yeah, his Tah-Lee-Bahn stuck out to me, too. but w/e, that's how you say it, you know

boehner does a shot

xpost That's just how Muslims say it.

it's like ppl getting het up about ppl actually pronouncing hispanic names correctly....dude, that's their name

Yeah I think it is just we are used to the short A sound on all of the -bans and -stans of the world when it is not exactly pronounced that way.

Dude probably got called "bare-ack oh-beh-meh" a lot back in the day.

but anyway i agree that it demonstrates pretty clearly that the dude is ready for sharia law

SUGGEST BAHN

yeah that's actually correct re: taliban, etc.
imo if you're used to the correct pronunciation of a word it feels weird/dumb to put a phony american accent on it

what a weird rallying point---how many schools currently ban ROTC?

Al Franken!

harvard law?

Al Frahn-ken

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck that rotc shit

I know about Talibahn, I wasn't sure about Sudahn.

OH shit guys: he's talking about railroads again

i would trade places with fiji i think

i mean ffs guys -18F is some bullshit imo

this pandering to boehner is gross fuck bipartisanship imo

HE'S GONNA CRY

BIDEN U RUBE

omg he's crying!!!!!!!!!!

DRINK

this pandering to boehner is gross fuck bipartisanship imo

He's the Speaker -- he deserves a blowjob too

that 'murrican dream

flights to MSP gotta be pretty cheap this time of year

Was secretly kinda hoping he was gonna be "That dream is what drove a child secretly born in Kenya to forge a Hawaiian birth certificate, and rise to the highest office in his adopted country..."

what did america save the chilean miners????

lol C-L

lol

xpost

this dude is not getting laid tonight u see his wife replace his hand when he tried to lay it on her knee

god damn america is the fukkin best

CRY BOEHNER CRY

We are gonna win the HELL out of the future.

I don't know what I'd do without you guys tonight. This is some platitudinous shit.

STATE OF THE UNION 2011: WE DO BIG THANGS

America fuck yeah

how many schools currently ban ROTC?

some did, dunno how many, but it was an issue with kagan's SCOTUS nomination because i believe harvard didn't let the military recruit on campus. it wasn't a policy she instituted, it was old - conflict between military discriminating on basis of sexual orientation vs campus policies which don't allow that. so this should change once DADT is no longer the policy

OBAMA TO COUNTRY: Our Swag is Phenomenal

i still mostly like this speech but "win the future" is hilariously bad

WOLVERIIIINES

our destiny remains our choice

~~makes u think~~

OBAMA TO COUNTRY: Our Swag is Phenomenal

― C-L, Tuesday, January 25, 2011 9:13 PM (20 seconds ago) Bookmark

LOL

AMERICA: BIG SHIT POPPIN

At least I'm not seething with rage. I'll take it.

"win the future" vs THE POLITICO's "win the day"

Still unclear on where he stands on NFL Lockout.

OBAMA: FUTURE SWAGGED OUT

Biden and Boehner quickly repaired to the speaker's chambers for some brews.

wait is that kal penn

wahhhhhhht

My takeaway from this is that the Green Bay Packers win the science fair and we all get bullet trains

kal penn worked for the administration! i don't think he still does though

"In the words of Wiz Khalifa, You know what it is, America. Everything we do, we do it big."

according to whitehouse.gov stream he does

My takeaway from this is that the Green Bay Packers win the science fair and we all get bullet trains

― VegemiteGrrrl, Tuesday, January 25, 2011 9:15 PM (53 seconds ago) Bookmark

i can live w/this

Oh lord -- Christiane Amanpour has praised its Kennedyesque "cadences" and Reagan "rhythms."

Yeah that is pretty much my ideal America.

The best part of this were the frames caught when my stream from whitehouse.gov froze (no doubt due to our crumbling infrastructure), capturing Obama's face in various contortions.

glad to hear he's replacing the various Offices of Salmon Affairs with the Office of Human-Salmon Hybrids, though, gonna save the middle class.

also loved Boehner's purple tie, wonder what the message was.

i like to win the future / i like to do big stuff

Say What You Will
January 25, 2011 10:17 P.M.
By Kathryn Jean Lopez

Platitudes, Rev. Wright, etc. But the president got his American exceptionalism on like never before.

its true

oh god KJL....otm?????

~suicides~

where's the afterparty

by which i mean the rebuttal

"for at least the next couple of minutes people will say 'this guy is our president'"---chris matthews, political analyst, microsoft news broadcast channel

"No Children" was playing in my friend's bar tonight, and I ventured that it would make an excellent SOTU response.

guys what channel do i shot

Playboy iirc

re k lopez, the hell does rev wright have to do with anything? who outside of the right wingnutsophere has thought about him in at least four years?

"for at least the next couple of minutes people will say 'this guy is our president'"

THIS GUY

i'm watching shep/wallace on fox broadcast now talking about why the opposition response speech always sucks

yeah but i wanna see it where do i see it

wallace thinks paul ryan is 'scary smart' about budgets/deficits

C'MON MAN. ryan is a charlatan

HOOS, I am amazed that Chris Matthews can find his dick when he has to piss.

cnn is airing bachmann's response fyi i don't think anybody else is and fuck knows i'm not visiting fucktardexpress to stream it

paul ryan as kermit the frog

god how do these people get on television and just fucking lie like this

who's this clown (actual GOP rep from georgia!)

@RepPaulBrounMD
Mr. President, you don't believe in the Constitution. You believe in socialism.

*yawns* at Paul Ryan

hahahah paul broun is fucking hilarious

totally look that guy up, he makes my day

his head is about to bobble off

Paul Ryan: DAMMIT THERE'S NO TIME (WE'RE TURNING INTO GREECE)

jim webb afaik the only opposition response speech that didn't seem like it was on saturday night live

Paul Ryan: lost child of the Cleaver family

Dude's eyes are mad bloodshot

Expression on Ryan's face = doctor telling you that new skin will grow over disfiguring third degree burns.

CNN with the bachmann countdown t-minus 4 minutes

wow, lol at that coal industry ad on CNN

chris matthews seriously needs to shut the fuck up

there is about a 100% consensus over at fox news that cuts to medicare/social security have to happen. i mean everybody. the only question they want to know is who's going to get it done

Paul Ryan Is Doing Fine But. . .
January 25, 2011 10:34 P.M.
By Ramesh Ponnuru

. . . what’s with the pink eyes? Does he need Visine?

we're never gonna cut defense spending , are we?

Nope. Only genitals get cut

Obama said that Gates ordered three machines guns and a jeep struck from the budget.

crowley thought ryan made the gop 'look really good'

lol

Don't have to now you sold all those federal buildings.

Xpost

here we go yall

A DYNAMIC FORCE FOR GOOD

oh lord charts

omg "world's finest healthcare"

KeithOlbermann
Here's another question: why isn't Rep. Bachmann LOOKING AT THE DAMNED CAMERA? #sotu #InsaneClownResponse

where's her tiara and is she going to toss a flaming baton in the talent portion of this show after she answers the "hard question" part?

holy fucking shit Iwo Jima

apparently Iwo Jima was won against all odds, I guess I need to throw out all my WW2 books that lied to me

look at the fukkin camera ffs

cannot look at camera AND read cards at the same time. Good thing she's not chewing gum!

my reaction ... this is the best we can hope for (for at least the next 2 years anyway)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9RAxAgksSE

DAVID GERGEN IS ABOVE THE FRAY

..."the Tea-Party Movement uses simple English..."
doh! cuz most of their party members cannot read beyond a third grade level. Gotta keep it simple or they won't get it.

cannot look at camera AND read cards at the same time. Good thing she's not chewing gum!

Presumably reading cards as teapartiers foreswear the Autocue

yeah, talking about damning with faint praise ...

switched back to larry o

daniel hernandez still looks pissed as fuk

A Chart!
January 25, 2011 10:53 P.M.
By Veronique de Rugy

A chart about changes in the unemployment rate: I bet that’s a first during a SOTU response. Go Michele Bachmann.

feelin #InsaneClownResponse

twitters:

CNN flash polling suggests Obama hit a home run tonight.

http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23WhatIsBachmannLookingAt

god, that unemployment chart bachmann used was so fucking disingenuous i shit my pants

i am actually so flabbergasted by that Bachmann speech that i can't even enjoy the cat on my lap right now. i've transferred all my anger into this damn pussy.

the intended audience for her speech was 4 feet to your left and 5 feet behind you

ACK GOBLINS

eye contact thing is amazing—how hard can it be to practice getting that right? to check it beforehand?

I worked on report cards while the SOTU played in the next room. In the back and forth of an interview, I think Obama's an exceptionally funny guy; he's often inept at delivering prepared material like his theatrical incredulity over...salmon legislation, I guess you'd call it. I realize this is like hanging a big "Kick Me" sign on my back, but I liked the Boehner stuff. Call it sucking up if you want, but you do have to work with the guy for the next couple of years, so you never know, disarming him a little bit today may pay off at some unexpected moment down the road. I hate to say it, but I think Obama probably even meant what he said. And I know that's one of many things that confounds and infuriates people about him.

Sorry to say I missed Bachmann-Ryan Overdrive.

I wonder if it's the massive criminality that goes with the job that now makes Obama such a fucking bore to listen to.

Yes--it's the massive, massive criminality.

i get it ur being sarcastic bc it seems obvious to u it's something distinct from the massive criminality

I try to post anything political in the morning, because I figure it's relatively safe. It's never safe.

Anyway, I could make the effort to try to reason through this with you guys, but a) it would take a lot of time, and b) anything I wrote would be answered with a one-line putdown. Doesn't really seem worth the effort. Shakey Mo Collier wrote some very good stuff responding to the massive criminality charge last week, on the political thread I think. Everyone has a different threshold of boredom. For me, it's saying the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, and never moving on to a second idea. Proceed apace.

Obama was just trying to get Bohner to cry again.

For a guy with such a sense of irony, Obama's terrible at delivering jokes though.

I didn't mind the Boehner backslapping either, by the way; it's courtesy. I minded his presenting the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts as if they were forgotten nightmares.

Bachmann-Ryan Overdrive. is this common parlance? it made me lol thinking about them singing this like a car commercial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iHblvzV7eE

http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/201101250020

Surprise surprise: fact-checking Ryan. Bachmann would be even worse.

For a guy with such a sense of irony, Obama's terrible at delivering jokes though.

As I wrote above, agree totally. Another thing he was really bad at during the campaign (that he's mostly cut out, thankfully) is sarcastic ridicule. Whenever he'd go down that road, I'd always recoil a bit.

smoked salmon!!

I think the problem with obama delivering stupid jokes is that he doesn't actually seem to find them funny (vs. dubya who's laughing before the punchline)

thing he was really bad at during the campaign (that he's mostly cut out, thankfully) is sarcastic ridicule.

Except for his persistent rants against Dem lefties, of course.

that wasn't especially sarcastic

Morbius: I think they need to invite you to give one of the SOTU responses next year. Five, six hours of airtime and you can vent invective until you're out of breath.

that wasn't especially sarcastic

"../If we get an historic health care bill passed -- oh, well, the public option wasn't there. If you get the financial reform bill passed -- then, well, I don't know about this particularly derivatives rule, I'm not sure that I'm satisfied with that. And gosh, we haven't yet brought about world peace and -- (laughter.) I thought that was going to happen quicker. (Laughter.)"

well we haven't brought about world peace, that's just plain true. we haven't even tried!

uh hello what do you call liberating iraq

morbs you got an open goal here, fire away

http://twitter.com/RepPaulBrounMD

i love how much this looks like a straight transcript of the inside of this guy's head

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/strongpie.jpg

"../If we get an historic health care bill passed -- oh, well, the public option wasn't there.

I know this is the most obvious point in the world to make, and I know the topic has been beaten to death, but: put a public option in that bill, and it doesn't pass. It simply doesn't pass. Maybe you'd feel better that the effort was made, and if so, that's fine--I think there's validity to the idea that's it better to aim high and fail than to compromise. But if you think Obama blew his chance to pass a public-option bill, I just think that's wrong.

so I had shit to do last night. what'd I miss? (presumably nothing)

i think it's fair to say that he and the dems in general blew their chance to really sell a public option to voters

and yeah, i get the pragmatic approach, but yr forgetting "aim high and ~then~ compromise if you have to" as an option. anyway, "pragmatism v. idealism" is the fight we have on these threads pretty much all the time (since we all basically agree, ideologically), so don't worry about beating it to death

more sarcasm! bush-y types are mad that obama didn't talk about all the bad people in the world:

http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2011/01/26/saying-nothing-when-theres-nothing-to-say/

Obama and his advisors must have judged that the public isn’t interested in and doesn’t care about foreign affairs very much, and the public is interested in such things only insofar as these matters relate to American security as the public understands it, and they are right. ... On a few of these issues, the State of the Union address is hardly a good place for discussing them. In the past, addresses that focused heavily on foreign affairs have often included statements that helped pave the way for extraordinarily bad policies (e.g., the “axis of evil” section of the 2002 SOTU). One advantage of saying relatively little about foreign policy in the address is that the President doesn’t step all over ongoing diplomatic and political efforts by making cheap rhetorical flourishes. On most of the issues, Obama had no reason to mention them last night. Chavez? Syria? The Green Movement? Really? Why would he mention any of these? Josh Rogin has his own list of things Obama didn’t mention, and for the most part my response to that list is the same. Can you imagine anything less interesting to most Americans than talking about Belarus? While we’re at it, why didn’t he talk about Polish visa waivers? Oh, right, because this isn’t a State Department briefing.

sorta contra to larison there, i was really surprised by his full-on endorsement of the opposition in tunisia. i guess they're not really "the opposition" anymore, but the situation is still very up-in-the-air, and has spread to egypt. i mean, i don't get how the neocons couldn't be happy with a very clear shot across the egyptian gov't's bow. well, i do get it, they're crazy and they hate obama.

i think it's fair to say that he and the dems in general blew their chance to really sell a public option to voters

and yeah, i get the pragmatic approach, but yr forgetting "aim high and ~then~ compromise if you have to" as an option. anyway, "pragmatism v. idealism" is the fight we have on these threads pretty much all the time (since we all basically agree, ideologically), so don't worry about beating it to death

― ullr saves (gbx), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 11:23 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think this is presumptive about the timeline. if u want to sell it as something that's ALREADY negotiated then its not going to be negotiated down as far, right? theoretically? i still think the 'doesnt obama know to negotiate you start high??' narrative is way simplistic & misunderstands negotiation

have to say I share Robert Fisk's deep cynicism about the prospects for real Arab democratic reforms

heard on NPR that Bam also didn't mention The Middle Class, let alone the poor. Guess his 2012 contribs can be called the LimoNeoLibs.

I don't think that's a very safe guess.

ok, fine. mostly i think the mistake was not making a strong case for the public option to the public. i understand that some laws can and should be made w/o direct appeals to public sentiment (that's why elect reps/delegates, right?), but the public option would have been a bit of legislation with which voters would have interacted pretty intimately---ceding it early in negotiations was a bad idea. i'm fine with arcane laws being hashed out behind closed doors by ppl that ostensibly know more than i do. the public option was not one of these.

xp morbs he mentioned the middle class a bunch iirc

who cares about health care reform now? The important thing is to get him reelected.

and at least alluded to the fact that the poor exist, i think. :-/

iirc he mentioned no class of american person specifically. unity, my brothers.

talking about how rough it's been for two years without mentioning what unemployment is right now is a sleight of hand too far

The middle class - that bit about the lady going back to school after losing her job in the furniture biz
The poor - the part about the high school with a higher graduation rate, etc.

[/i]who cares about health care reform now? The important thing is to get him reelected.[i]

The surer path to reelection would have been to never go near health care in the first place. He seemed to have taken a bit of grief for going down that road, right?

oh man A++ film reference!

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/separated-at-birth/

Hmm. One of my commenters claims that Representative Ryan is a dead ringer for the evil representative of The Phone Company from The President’s Analyst (one of my favorite good-bad movies too). ["It explains your utter lack of hostility. You can vent your aggressive feelings by actually killing people! It's a sensational solution to the hostility problem. "]

From the TImes:

When Ms. Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota, addressed the nation with her own, more alarmist assessment of its state, she seemed almost like the telekinetic high school heroine of “Carrie.”

The surer path to reelection would have been to never go near health care in the first place. He seemed to have taken a bit of grief for going down that road, right?

Not really. Especially as "What about HCR?" is usually the first line of defense for dems against the "Obama is Bush 2" line of thought.

yeah i'm pretty sure even democrats might have been upset if he hadn't touched health care at all

'waht abt the public option!' is just way people have of saying 'i have no idea what im talking abt but ive heard this is a good thing to get excited abt!' its hard to hold it against them as hcr is an endlessly byzantine topic but srsly shh move to not knowing anything abt something else now

yeah public option, even beginning to loosen private insurers' grip on people's health, clearly not something to get worked up about

that is adequately vague and moralistic ty

it simply didn't have the votes

its simply wasnt that big a deal, but people liked the sound of it, public option yay!

sorry for being stupid u_u

its cool youll always have the public option to tell you what a non watered down reality could look like

pretty sure a system where the government can sell health care to its citizens is appreciably different in important ways from a system where it can't, regardless of what you think of it

anyway yeah it didn't have the votes

For the thousandth time, it wasn't even a choice. You don't start with nothing, then negotiate downwards, which is what Obama apparently did. We have no idea whether we'd have some diluted form of government-provided care if Obama had insisted on it.

the negotiation tactic argument is pretty hilar too cause you all know they were 'negotiating' w/like three crazy senators total right

oh you dont like this middling public option ben nelson well what if i demand TOTAL SOCIALIZED MEDICINE now you like the public option huh

no u r still crazy ol ben nelson huh well this surely sux

pretty sure a system where the government can sell health care to its citizens is appreciably different in important ways from a system where it can't, regardless of what you think of it

anyway yeah it didn't have the votes

― difficult listening hour, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 2:25 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is otm

the 'negotiating tactic' argument is dumb for the reason i posted just upthread alfred, scroll up christs sake

im not sure i buy that obama could have sold the public option to the public -- as soon as he signs on to a single 'requirement' for the bill it becomes a GOP goal to defeat that goal no matter what thus ensuring his 'failure'

no american congress is going to build a publicly-held insurer that beats a private one to market. we'll see bullet trains and a goddam carbon tax in this country long before that happens, and frankly i don't expect either of those ever either.

I read it and it made no sense

goole OTM sadly

by keeping the goalposts vague from an executive standpoint everyone can declare some degree of 'victory' which allows for the compromise

I read it and it made no sense

― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 2:32 PM (33 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

try again alfred

think about this -- u enter with an already-negotiated bill -- then its hard for people to negotiate down from it, if its framed as already being a compromise

If I'm negotiating over the price of an apple pie, and the retail price is $7, I don't say, "I'll give you $6.90 for it." You start at $3.50 and know you'll get to $4, maybe even $4.50 or $5." With "the public option," Obama wasn't even willing to consider it as a negotiable item. according to every news story I've read. I could be wrong.

the idea that he didnt know that negotiating involves starting from a high number and fighting downward is like ... how dumb do u dudes really think he is? come on

pretty sure a system where the government can sell health care to its citizens is appreciably different in important ways from a system where it can't, regardless of what you think of it
anyway yeah it didn't have the votes

― difficult listening hour, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 2:25 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is otm

― ullr saves (gbx), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 3:30 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

~magically different~ devil, details etc

If I'm negotiating over the price of an apple pie, and the retail price is $7, I don't say, "I'll give you $6.90 for it." You start at $3.50 and know you'll get to $4, maybe even $4.50 or $5." With "the public option," Obama wasn't even willing to consider it as a negotiable item. according to every news story I've read. I could be wrong.

― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 2:35 PM (36 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

if it seems like im an idiot for not agreeing w you its because your argument is absurdly obvious that the GOP already knows this supposed tactic

perhaps he should have asked for ~two~ public optinos

can someone articulate the "reasonable" conservative position against bullet trains? like is it "too much spending" or what? because a quick perusal of the corner today made me think that the actual reason is that it's just slavishly European. and like that is advanced as a real, cogent argument against trains in this country, as if no further discussion were necessary. i usually try to understand the Other Guy, so that can't be it, right?

I'm an administrator who helps oversee a $250,000 budget, and every year we haggle student fee money out of student government. We ask for as much as we can get, and know that after negotiations we're going to get, in normal economic times, a final figure that's a bit higher than we got the previous years.

i think all the insurer and hospital groups he bought off with the public option's non-existence would have gladly destroyed HCR w/o mercy if were there, ie i don't think the negotiation was with the senate republicans entirely.

perhaps he should have asked for ~two~ public optinos

and a side of buffalo wings

anyway yeah it didn't have the votes

Hard to vote on legislation that doesn't come up for vote.

if you propose a bill, and u brand it as 'already-compromised,' it will be LESS watered down than if u propose a bill with absurdly unwinnable goals that u expect to be fought down through negotiation -- that is then branded as partisan/not serious/unwinnable/childish

(obv this isnt always the case but im presenting an alternate theory to the simplistic 'why didnt he ask for more??' narrative that seems to drive every argument like this)

Hard to vote on legislation that doesn't come up for vote.

^^^demonstrably untrue in terms of the US legislative process

can someone articulate the "reasonable" conservative position against bullet trains? like is it "too much spending" or what? because a quick perusal of the corner today made me think that the actual reason is that it's just slavishly European. and like that is advanced as a real, cogent argument against trains in this country, as if no further discussion were necessary. i usually try to understand the Other Guy, so that can't be it, right?

― ullr saves (gbx), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 2:37 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

there's a "smokescreen reasonable" position against them, in that the US has way lower pop. density than europe and coastal asia. but that's a dumm argument because nobody said you have to build trains everywhere, just in the places where... we DO have pop. dens. like europe and japan. so yeah i think you have the only reason.

Part of negotiation is controlling how the story gets out.

like i know we like to perceive that we see things clearly and the general public are the ones who take received wisdom on 'framing' but we are looking through an equally arbitrary framework of what is 'possible' and what is 'good enough' etc. -- which was i think ice craem's point

in general bills are only brought to the floor for a vote AFTER the result has been predetermined

xp

icey wtf r u on about---a public option WOULD be appreciably different if it was substantially cheaper (it was my understanding that it would be), allowed pre-existing conditions, and was less difficult to navigate. maybe i'm remembering things incorrectly, but wasn't the industry objection to the public option mostly that it was "unfair"? i know some ppl said it would be too pricey, but i'm pretty sure it died because the private insurance industry didn't want a competitor that could undercut them with the subsidies of tens of millions of taxpayers. like, it died precisely because it would have changed the game TOO much

many xps

can we negotiate our talking points over beers and tacos? It's almost quitting time.

conservatives have a weird inability to read between the lines:

Egypt Update: Presidential Silence amid Turbulence
January 26, 2011 3:32 P.M.
By Charlie Szrom

Last night in his State of the Union address, President Obama said, “The United States of America stands with the people of Tunisia, and supports the democratic aspirations of all people.” The President failed to mention Egypt.

uhh

~magically different~ devil, details etc

― ice cr?m, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 8:36 PM (44 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well if you're any even mild kind of socialist it's a situation where there exists a permanent floor to the cost of health care and prices can't rise via the natural upward glide of an oligopoly vs. a situation where that is exactly what happens all the time. and if you're not it's a situation where the government reaches greedily into places where it has no business and crushes the bones of the invisible hand vs. a situation where it doesn't do that. either way it is a real difference.

"meh, public option no big deal" = endless excuses for this right-of-Nixon domestic disaster.

(the p.o. that was allegedly in the Dems' proposal at one point was a sucky one, that's true)

no american congress is going to build a publicly-held insurer that beats a private one to market. we'll see bullet trains and a goddam carbon tax in this country long before that happens, and frankly i don't expect either of those ever either.

― goole, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 3:32 PM (10 minutes ago)

incredibly depressing how non-radical any of these things are, lol

one thing to understand re hcr is that this is a negotiation thats been going on since like the clinton admin where youve had think tanks advocacy groups etc building their cases over the last 15 years talking to legislators et al - by the time this negotiation went public its parameters had more or less already been set and it was p clear where the people w/the votes stood - this sort of slow mo process pruned a lot of no doubt valid ideas out but its also p much what allowed the thing get done

You know what's interesting about the health care non-debate? It's taking place at the exact same time the UK, known for its health care, is proposing radical cuts and more competition. That is, very Republican sounding ideas. But I suppose one facet of Republican extreme exceptionalism - that is, not only are we unique, but we are the only wealthy/prosperous/educated country in the whole world - is that they cannot acknowledge that the UK exists. Ergo, they cannot tout such an obvious retort to those who look to Europe for guidance.

(Though I have no doubt that in the end even a "gutted" NHS would still be more comprehensive that US gov't health care).

icey wtf r u on about---a public option WOULD be appreciably different if it was substantially cheaper (it was my understanding that it would be), allowed pre-existing conditions, and was less difficult to navigate. maybe i'm remembering things incorrectly, but wasn't the industry objection to the public option mostly that it was "unfair"? i know some ppl said it would be too pricey, but i'm pretty sure it died because the private insurance industry didn't want a competitor that could undercut them with the subsidies of tens of millions of taxpayers. like, it died precisely because it would have changed the game TOO much

― ullr saves (gbx), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 3:42 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well theres public options and theres public options - a comprehensive one open to all had v little support and was never really on the table - one available to only people who had no access to other types of insurance had some support but ultimately did not happen do to the inane set up of the senate - some of the benefits of a public option have been accomplished w/the exchanges tho imo

the ultimate most sensible cheap public option is of course medicare buy in - which maybe well see down the road who knows - vermont is primed for single payer atm

"meh, public option no big deal" = endless excuses for this right-of-Nixon domestic disaster.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 3:43 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

eh my point was more public option cheerleading is an easy identifier for those who have more interest in seizing the easy moral high ground than understanding what actually happened - it was a huge bill and the public option was just not the be all end all no matter how you mesure it: cost, coverage whatever - it got media play that far outweighed its actual importance and has become fairly meaningless code for 'not happy abt what happened here' - line it up next to 'nixon' (outdated but ill make allowances) and 'watered down' and you might form a wholly vacuous sentence

eh my point was more public option cheerleading is an easy identifier for those who have more interest in seizing the easy moral high ground than understanding what actually happened - it was a huge bill and the public option was just not the be all end all no matter how you mesure it: cost, coverage whatever - it got media play that far outweighed its actual importance and has become fairly meaningless code for 'not happy abt what happened here' - line it up next to 'nixon' (outdated but ill make allowances) and 'watered down' and you might form a wholly vacuous sentence

― ice cr?m, Wednesday, January 26, 2011 9:02 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

loving how yr wonky paragraph's nerdiness is totally neutralized by 'eh'

eh my point was more public option cheerleading is an easy identifier for those who have more interest in seizing the easy moral high ground than understanding what actually happened

oh, this is fair; i have those friends on facebook too.

also, on the politics thread

"meh, public option no big deal" = endless excuses for this right-of-Nixon domestic disaster.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 3:43 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

do you actually think HCR worsened our healthcare system?

When people say things like this it makes me think that they don't really care that much about health care. Because if they did they would have to admit that coverage for pre-existing conditions is a big deal.

NOT ENUFF, JOE BIDEN

moderate, important improvements--- DOMESTIC DISASTER!

this nixon stuff seems a bit disingenuous. one president, no matter how left wing, is going to be able to roll back 30 years of neoliberalism, sorry.

eh my point was more public option cheerleading is an easy identifier for those who have more interest in seizing the easy moral high ground than understanding what actually happened

Rahm Emmanuel twaddle, especially for those of us who actually have to deal with budget negotiations.

I'm glad we the electorate got some medical guarantees out of last spring's wrangling, and it's possible the plutocratic, insurance industry-friendly nature of the final product will make it that much harder for the GOP to dismantle, but I have no reason to be optimistic.

oh come on the GOP isn't going to dismantle any of this

I mean I guess they might if Obama lost reelection, but at this point the odds of that happening are roughly equivalent to Canada invading the US

Your friends over here are having fun.

who cares what was "promised"?

comparing yr university budget negotiations to the process in the u.s. congress as if it makes you some sort of authority is completely laughable alfred - look im laughing at you hahahaha

http://deadhomersociety.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/dj3000.png

looks like those clowns in congress have done it again! what a bunch of clowns

xp

You fell on your ass too.

xp

commenting on ILE adduces your mindreading powers too.

OH NO CODE RED!!

I'm an administrator who helps oversee a $250,000 budget, and every year we haggle student fee money out of student government. We ask for as much as we can get, and know that after negotiations we're going to get, in normal economic times, a final figure that's a bit higher than we got the previous years.

― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 3:37 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Rahm Emmanuel twaddle, especially for those of us who actually have to deal with budget negotiations.

― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 5:33 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

were dealing w/an expert negotiator here people listen close

deej commented upthread about my not understanding the art of "negotiation" -- as if wrangling with the Pitchfork scions about how much he gets paid per album review gives him special insight.

this is stupid guys

no wai alfred understand this stuff shhh

what -- grammar?

exactly... grammar!

boys boys

yr right alfred has a well thought out original pov on this negotiating tactics watered down public option rahm emmanuel

if you propose a bill, and u brand it as 'already-compromised,' it will be LESS watered down than if u propose a bill with absurdly unwinnable goals that u expect to be fought down through negotiation -- that is then branded as partisan/not serious/unwinnable/childish

totally disagree, also, 10-yard style switch penalty for switching from "you" to "u" in the middle of a sentence.

the reason people argue that obama is an awful negotiator is that he has a history of negotiating with himself - conceding key points to republicans without even being asked, and without getting anything in return. Like the debacle that was expanding offshore drilling a month before the BP spill (completely pissing off environmentalists and arriving in tandem with the final death of a climate bill which he never really strongly defended publicly. Trust in Obama among many who care about the environment collapsed in April-June 2010), and not getting anything in return for it. The offshore drilling issue has been floating around for decades. Reasonable people could assume that at some point a U.S. president was going to open it up for drilling, since most politicians are dumb enough to think that it would actually significantly lower the price of gas within the next decade (RONG). Fine. but if he was going to give it up, why he didn't something, ANYTHING, in return, like support for renewable energy and energy efficiency standards, say?

Or the freeze on federal wages. What did he get in return for that? Was anyone asking him to do that at the time? Again, I'm definitely willing to take a freeze and take one for the team, but for WTF, get something in return!

the idea that he didnt know that negotiating involves starting from a high number and fighting downward is like ... how dumb do u dudes really think he is? come on

on the optimistic side, maybe you could argue that he wants to set an example of bipartisanship and hope and all that shit so badly that he's viewing his unprovoked giveaways as serving as some sort of example that he hopes others will emulate. that would be reaaaaally fucking naive, but hey. on the cynical side, maybe he doesn't give a shit about expanding offshore drilling (or the public option or anything else he's fucked up), or even was in favor of giving away those things. that's why you have environmentalists and public option advocates who feel a bit betrayed in some respects, because in that case he basically lied about his positions during the campaign.

Negotiating with senators and administrators, responsible to their constituencies, and knowing what information to withhold, provide, fudge a bit, and when to yield to off the record agreements -- yeah, I'd say it gives me a little insight into how The Art of Negotiation works. Rather like how posting hastily on ILE affects the quality of your quips.

xpost

hahahaha

And to elaborate slightly on why I disagree with this:

if you propose a bill, and u brand it as 'already-compromised,' it will be LESS watered down than if u propose a bill with absurdly unwinnable goals that u expect to be fought down through negotiation -- that is then branded as partisan/not serious/unwinnable/childish

i think that would be closer to correct if you were negotiating with normal people that, you know, have morals and stuff. Obama's negotiating with the republican party. THEY WILL FIGHT EVERY SINGLE THING IN THE BILL SO THAT IT EITHER DOES NOT PASS OR IS AS WATERED DOWN AS POSSIBLE, no matter how it's been compromised ahead of time, and by who, and how proactive and unprovoked and totally generous the giveaway was. it doesn't make any sense for obama to water it down.

Z S largely otm

i think at the base of these obama grievances is the common misunderstanding that the president passes legislation - now he has some influence but srsly there is a whole u.s. congress w/its own aims and ideas - its p funny the whole country basically agrees that the president is in charge of everything

No one has implied that AT ALL. What we've said is that he neutured himself when negotiating with a co-equal branch of government comprised of people who hate his guts

and while zs points kinda make sense in a vacuum - i dont personally think they at all match up to what actually happened - amateur negotiating theory meet the historical record, if you care to

No one has implied that AT ALL. What we've said is that he neutured himself when negotiating with a co-equal branch of government comprised of people who hate his guts

― Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 6:04 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

again the negotiation was w/like three or four weirdo senators not a whole branch of government who hates him - just to try to interject some specificity

senators who already had a p good idea on what they were willing to vote for

Based on the voting records of the senators involved, I think this was about the best HCR we could get with this congress.

I think Obama could have potentially gotten a bigger stimulus with different negotiating, however.

the reason people argue that obama is an awful negotiator is that he has a history of negotiating with himself - conceding key points to republicans without even being asked, and without getting anything in return.

im arguing this is more about perception than anything else

and then what happened was we got the most important piece of legislation that passed in our country in a long time, i apologize that were not denmark, i too would prefer denmark, i actually have a plan for this, its called taking up the south on its offer to leave the union

its a major accomplishment and people are soo mad abt it -if youre gonna be mad at obama from the left his legislative record is a v silly place to start

that is then branded as partisan/not serious/unwinnable/childish

the downside of fighting for something that your liberal base supports is that it will be viewed as partisan by the GOP? they ALREADY view everything he does as partisan, no matter how centrist or right-center the policies are!! it doesn't matter!

not serious? are liberals really so weak-kneed that fighting for something that a majority of liberals support (public option, etc) is not considered "not serious"? correct me if i'm wrong, but don't republicans regularly take the issues that their hard right base support (shutting down the entire government) and fight tooth and nail for them? why can't democrats do that with the left? even fucking Don't Ask Don't Tell is a big compromise - if they really wanted to fight for what the left represents they'd be pushing for a giant LBGT civil rights bill to try to make up for the last 10,000 years of ignorance. Instead they focus on making sure that openly gay people can die for stupid reasons just like straight people do. baby steps, yah, but i'm just saying the issues that are important to the democratic base rarely get strong unmitigated support from democrats, and that's not true of the right.

unwinnable? well, like others have said, how will we ever know? i understand they've been negotiating some issues for decades, tightrope walking between industry, lobbyists, advocacy groups, etc, but every once in a while a president who evidently believes in something passionately and makes his/her case to the public, and persistently, can actually have an impact on the debate. or so i have heard. don't see it much from obama.

childish?

??

just fyi the republican base thinks their elected officials are a bunch of cowards too

srsly you know what wouldve made for a lot better healthcare bill - filibuster reform - get behind that you whiney negotiating experts and you maybe earn my grudging respect

hahaha, agreed there.

pretty sure ice cr?m is a White House plant.

just fyi the republican base thinks their elected officials are a bunch of cowards too

of course, but public perception aside, you do not agree that republicans represent the key issues of ultraconservatives to a much greater degree than democrats represent the key issues of progressives?

Like I wrote in the politics thread, the GOP gets a pretty handsome mandate in the House, and it immediately votes on dismantling health care. When the Dems got both chambers in 2006, they kept voting for the Iraq war and gave the Bush administration authorization to bypass FISA. Lots of GOP votes may be "symbolism" but damn if they don't understand its political potency.

so you want democrats to make lots of meaningless votes theyre going to lose idgi is that just a bad example

i just srsly dont get how people can be so upset w/the government for so long and still believe the problem is not having the right people doing the just the right things - if instead peoples ire was turned toward the structure of the government a lot of actually transformative things could happen - filibuster reform is low hanging fruit - but theres tons of other stuff that could be fixed if anyone gave a shit - the committee system, instant run off voting etc

of course, but public perception aside, you do not agree that republicans represent the key issues of ultraconservatives to a much greater degree than democrats represent the key issues of progressives?

― 23 24 (Z S), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 6:20 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think they represent their wealthy constituents v well, the rest of em just get smoke blown up their asses

think it's possible to consider obama's studious "bipartisan" fixation to often be naive and Too Much and to wish that he'd made at least a symbolic push for things like the public option and to think that such a push even if defeated would not have been pointless, and still be proud of him for managing to force anything at all through the sclerotic legislative system.

like what i meant by that facebook comment was that there are people who seem to have expected obama to be an actual socialist instead of a center-right corporatist with some FDR thrown in, and it was silly of them to have expected that and it's petulant of them to complain about it now. but it's possible to be glad some progress was made in the clusterfuck of american health care and still think obama could have pushed harder for what he appears to actually believe in, instead of leaving it to someone else to do, later, maybe.

CHECK ME OUT BEING BIPARTISAN

He believes in railroads, electricity, and Sputnik.

my old middle-school principal was mentioned... she got transferred out of our school as it was so ridiculously successful and put in the worst school in town, to apparently revolutionize the place. i guess she did, obv, to be mentioned nationally. i do have a memory of her going classroom to classroom drowning in tears tho, a tad heartbreaking if i didn't think she was a jerk. 13 year old mentality, of course.

peoples certainty that they could make blanche lincoln do as they plz through their superior understanding of game theory rarely seems tempered by the knowledge that obama/reid/pelosi passed the most important progressive legislation in 40+ and some other quite alright bills too

why the binary? We're an Angry Base, we can hold both positions.

yeah i was certainly worried that with massive democratic majorities in both chambers and control of the presidency that they wouldn't manage to pass legislation that looks good compared to the bush ii, clinton, bush i, reagan, carter, ford, and nixon years

i said tempered, and this is maybe too wide ranging for this forum, but anger isnt that impressive everyone has it, even birds, id prefer to see intelligence, compassion and creativity on the left xp

kevin as it takes 60 to overcome the filibuster they didnt have a massive majority in the senate, which is where the bottleneck was, they had to placate their most conservative members, this is how we got the bill we got - anyone not understanding this narrative is bound to come to some poor conclusions

birds get angry?

liberal birds

if not for the filibuster wed no doubt be arguing now abt how the public option sucks and why couldnt we get medicare for all - as i said before, end the filibuster

angry birds you guys, havent heard of them, they are mad at pigs

yep good luck getting senators to vote to give themselves less power, maybe they could vote to disband too

filibuster reform kind of petered out just the other day

Reapportionment of Senate and House seats would be a fine new beginning too. Henrik Hertzberg has a good plan which has no chance of even being proposed.

yep good luck getting senators to vote to give themselves less power, maybe they could vote to disband too

― fruit of the goon (k3vin k.), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 6:51 PM (11 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

if it had wide public opposition there would be no problem - lots of senators dislike it already

it simply doesn't have the votes

i actually think filibuster reform will be something that gets done in the not too distant future, the tide is rising against it in ways generally considered omg impossible never gonna happen like two years ago

thing is sure it gives some senators more power than they would ordinarily enjoy, but it takes it away from others - and i know its hard to believe but some legislators come to washington to actually you know legislate

it simply doesn't have the votes

― fruit of the goon (k3vin k.), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 6:58 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha interesting failed corollary - its kind of instructive tho

there are no votes for anything filibuster reform right now - but what if there were votes to improve the system somewhat say make the filibustering party have all of its filibustering members present rather than just the one required right now - would this be a failure or an improvement - would you leave it on the table in hopes of getting a better offer later - maybe use yr magical negotiating skills to get what you want

we will get rid of the filibuster when there is a republican president and democratic minorities in the house and senate

lol otm

dems are probably going to lose the senate majority in 2012, so passing filibuster reform then will be even more difficult than it is now. then, once republicans are in power, i would guess that democrats will make use of the filibuster, but not nearly to the same degree that republicans did (just an educated guess based off of their historical use and nonuse of the filibuster). i think that not only will they use it less often, but democrats would also avoid the transparently bogus use of it that the republicans so often employed.

er, and my point with the stupid predictions about reduced use of the filibuster post-2012 is that it the issue of filibuster reform would cool off somewhat as a result.

the solution is just to have it phased in like six years down the road when no one knows who will be in control

agreed there

but don't think it will happen

dude you should just come have a look at my crystal ball, it has many answers

i think there will be some sort of reform but not total elimination, of course it would help if people gave a shit abt this thing that actually matters

and hasnt like already happened

not as much fun as hating the president tho, o how i enjoyed despising gwb

http://i52.tinypic.com/swwfet.gif

so is this our new US Politics thread? Fine with me.

while i suspect counting words in the sotu is prob not the most accurate reflection of an administrations intentions inability to get anything done re the environment is the major ongoing tragedy of contemporary american government - cap and trade died in the senate btw

I'm not sure how you convince (American) people to make personal sacrifices in order to fight global warming (or to mitigate the disaster of rising oil prices).

its a major dilemma for sure, i dont know that sacrifice is really the story tho

more like self-preservation

the most damaging myth about climate change is that mitigating it would require significant personal sacrifices from the American people. what's certain is that NOT addressing it will CERTAINLY require enormous personal sacrifices from people across the world (and across generations).

oops xpost

its kind of the same old story abt government being 'business friendly' theyre real friendly to businesses that already exist and somewhat rude to those that dont yet

for something to be a 'significant personal sacrifice' doesn't take much in this country

it would be a significant personal sacrifice on the part of the fossil fuel industries, and that's the real problem.

yep

its a major dilemma for sure, i dont know that sacrifice is really the story tho

― ice cr?m, Thursday, January 27, 2011 12:46 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

paying higher taxes, using less energy, driving your car less, using public transportation, etc. All these things are sacrifices.

Oil is the cheapest fuel around, and switching from that will require sacrifices. Of course in light of what will inevitably happen if we keep using oil, the sacrifice is quite small. But it's still there, and people prefer to just think we'll figure something out later.

Our energy use is simply too high and we need to mitigate that with conservation and frugality. Two things that are considered pathetic and defeatist by too much of the American public.

mandatory cloth grocery bags could probably cost obama 2012

jimmy carter's sweaters 2.0

yeah! and people like sweaters!

i dont think conservation and frugality are gonna do it tbh, not when theres 5 billion people in the world who want what we have

we just need to convince them that our lives suck

dude look at our country plzzz, yr sustenance farming is way better id totally trade my heated apartment and fancy clothes for what you have but you know i just IS THAT THE PHONE

i dont think conservation and frugality are gonna do it tbh, not when theres 5 billion people in the world who want what we have

― ice cr?m, Thursday, January 27, 2011 1:00 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

well in terms of global warming it's a different story. But oil prices will cripple us unless we lower our energy usage dramatically.

so is this our new US Politics thread? Fine with me.

fuck no, this'd be worst title ever

i dont think conservation and frugality are gonna do it tbh, not when theres 5 billion people in the world who want what we have

― ice cr?m, Thursday, January 27, 2011

this is p crazy. for instance wiki sez like,

Europe = 11% of the world's population. North America is home to 5%.

not sure europe is pining for hyper car culture or the right not to use cloth crocery bags etc

it's easy to underestimate europe's car culture

ice craem tbombs all over this thread

the downside of fighting for something that your liberal base supports is that it will be viewed as partisan by the GOP? they ALREADY view everything he does as partisan, no matter how centrist or right-center the policies are!! it doesn't matter!

not serious? are liberals really so weak-kneed that fighting for something that a majority of liberals support (public option, etc) is not considered "not serious"? correct me if i'm wrong, but don't republicans regularly take the issues that their hard right base support (shutting down the entire government) and fight tooth and nail for them? why can't democrats do that with the left? even fucking Don't Ask Don't Tell is a big compromise - if they really wanted to fight for what the left represents they'd be pushing for a giant LBGT civil rights bill to try to make up for the last 10,000 years of ignorance. Instead they focus on making sure that openly gay people can die for stupid reasons just like straight people do. baby steps, yah, but i'm just saying the issues that are important to the democratic base rarely get strong unmitigated support from democrats, and that's not true of the right.

unwinnable? well, like others have said, how will we ever know? i understand they've been negotiating some issues for decades, tightrope walking between industry, lobbyists, advocacy groups, etc, but every once in a while a president who evidently believes in something passionately and makes his/her case to the public, and persistently, can actually have an impact on the debate. or so i have heard. don't see it much from obama.

childish?

??

― 23 24 (Z S), Wednesday, January 26, 2011 5:12 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this post is all wrong

it has nothing to do w/ the GOP viewing it as partisan, its those ppl who just jumped from 'i disapprove of the president' to 'i approve of the president.' duh

'fighting' is a rhetorical strategy, you're not understanding the diff between that & figuring out how to be most effective. the GOP has been 'fighting tooth and nail' to turn over roe v wade for years, and they're not really any further. jhoshea is right, basically the only thing the GOP has really succeeded in doing for the past 30 years is shifting money upwards

unwinnable? well, like others have said, how will we ever know? i understand they've been negotiating some issues for decades, tightrope walking between industry, lobbyists, advocacy groups, etc, but every once in a while a president who evidently believes in something passionately and makes his/her case to the public, and persistently, can actually have an impact on the debate. or so i have heard. don't see it much from obama.

well, do u think hrc fought for health care?

save-a-bammin'

xxp

^^^prefers no health care to a compromise

Dem compromises = yielding 20x in a row

fuck, this is futile

yah you should give up

I'm not sure how you convince (American) people to make personal sacrifices in order to fight global warming (or to mitigate the disaster of rising oil prices).

Framing the narrative. Make environmentalism less about "Save the dolphins!" and "The world might flood in 200 years!" and more about "Do you want everyone you know and love to stop dying of cancers?"

i do like obama but this is my favorite he's-not-liberal-enough complaint that's ever appeared on my facebook wall:

T****** is wondering what the point of even having a president is, IF HE'S JUST GONNA BE STUPID.

(have no idea what specifically it's in reference to, ensuing thread does not enlighten)

http://grab.by/8DRt

lmao

inevitable

There's been enough Reagan talk to perhaps warrant switching to a new thread or an old Reagan one.

this is one of the best magazine covers in history

Obama looks more waxen.

it is a pic from madame tussauds

Bam invited it with his warning-alarm praise for Reagan on the trail (impossible to interpret as a good thing, tho I'm sure some of you Gumbys would try it).

Every post-RR prez wants to be Reagan.

You know I cut Obama little slack, but how can you interpret his remark that Reagan was a more significant president than Clinton as praise?

I mean:

I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. They felt like with all the excesses of the 60s and the 70s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think he tapped into what people were already feeling. Which is we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."

It's actually a cynical remark: he's saying the people were ready for the Reagan mythos/blarney.

yep

According to the Jonathan Alter book--no idea if this is true or not, but it sounds plausible to me--the Reagan remark was primarily indended as Hillary bait. They wanted something that would get a rise out of her at that point in the campaign, something to make her overreact, and that's what they went with; the 3:00 a.m. ad soon followed, I think.

Bam is unmistakably pro-"accountability" (sic] (as long as you don't work on Wall Street, or for/with the Pentagon)

clem: according to TIME, though, the Obama camp had been so used to hearing their boss make the comparison over the years that it raised no warnings.

that reagan was by far the most influential recent president and the idea that if you want to have a successful presidency it might be worth looking at what worked for him seems like the most obvious least controversial pov

News reports keep talking about Obama reading a book on Reagan over his winter holiday break in Hawaii

The idea of Hillary bait didn't sound right to me either. I didn't see the Reagan remark as praise, didn't see it as cynical; I just viewed it as sound analysis, an acknowledgement that whatever you thought of Reagan's presidency, he was indeed transformative. It's hard to make a case that he wasn't.

Yeah, I loathed the dude but I can't gainsay his sway.

Reagan is a very peculiar kind of success story, in that he was mainly successful at being likeable, while his administration did despicable things all up and down the line. He was superb at repeating the same nostrums, with the same chuckles and faux-wise head shakes, ad nauseum. Iow, he was an amazing figurehead, lovingly painted and gilded by his faithful ship's crew.

His other major talent was horse trading with the Democratic pols in Congress, most of whom were, like Tip O'Neill, horse traders by instinct and profession from way back, which means this was no small talent. He generally came away with some concessions, which he always recast as victories for his side, but as not nearly enough, because those gosh-darned Dems just kept holding him back from making the kind of changes this country really needed.

I am pretty sure the above was not Bam's only Reagan-related remark.

Please also note "I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s..."

I wonder what those could be? As someone who was following politics in that era, I can assure you high up on that list was "welfare for the ________s." (insert the slur of your choice)

no thanks

apparently Limbaugh is venting over the Time cover; at last, in sync with the Hopers!

His other major talent was horse trading with the Democratic pols in Congress, most of whom were, like Tip O'Neill, horse traders by instinct and profession from way back, which means this was no small talent.

That to me was the flaw in Alfred's analogy the other day about selling the apple pie: you need someone who wants to buy it to work the back and forth. If you want to sell a pie, and the other side wants to buy it, then yeah, you go through the process (which both sides are well aware of) of meeting somewhere in the middle. With Obama trying to get through health care, it was more like:

Obama: "I want to sell you an apple pie for $5.00. What are you willing to pay?"
Republicans: "Beluga Whale."
Obama: "Come again? What will you pay for this apple pie?"
Republicans: "Don Knotts."
Obama: "You don't really want this apple pie, do you."
Republicans: "Socialist!"

If the pie analogy was targeted at the three or four Democrats who were a problem, though, that makes more sense. And I agree Obama could have handled those doofuses better.

ha!

If the pie analogy was targeted at the three or four Democrats who were a problem, though, that makes more sense.

but even then, since the success of the entire bill depended on securing the votes of a handful of dems, the apple pie analogy shifts to:

Obama: "Please, purchase this apple pie for $5.00. I'll go lower, even. much lower. ."
Dem swing votes: "We want you to pee on this pie a little."
Obama: "? You understand everyone has to eat this pie..."
Dem swing votes: "pee on this pie a little, or we'll poop on the pie and it will so ruined that no one will ever eat it."

who needs the Taco Bell thread?

sometimes the only analogy that comes to mind involves the TMI staples