http://yes-justice.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] yes-justice.livejournal.com) wrote in [community profile] talkpolitics2013-10-01 08:20 pm

You had one f-ing job.....

Uh, red team, wtf? You've allowed these tea party freaks drive to the car into a ditch. That's the plan?
“We’re very excited,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). “It’s exactly what we wanted, and we got it.
Well, yay for hurting people IRL?


TIM MURPHY: Well, the short answer is about 20 percent of the federal government, 800,000 federal workers, will show up to work today and be sent home, and that includes 400,000 civilian workers from the Department of the Defense. That’s the department that probably gets the most cuts from this. The longer answer is, you know, pretty much various things that you use in your everyday life will no longer be open to you. People applying for mortgages will have trouble getting that from the federal government. People trying to fill out their taxes will no longer be able to call the IRS to ask basic questions. The Coast Guard is cutting back some of its navigation assistance. Auto—new automobile inspections will be curtailed. The EPA is closing 94 percent of its responsibilities for the foreseeable future. You know, there’s kind of this perception that the shutdown mostly just affects Washington, D.C., and it really does affect Washington, D.C., but it goes much broader than that.

Yay, shut down the EPA, bring back acid rain!!!. NRC has slashed planned nuke plant inspections! NOAA is slashing. EPA is really fucked. NASA Voyager, fucked. Mars Rover is fucked Kids being kicked out of cancer treatments:

"At the National Institutes of Health, nearly three-quarters of the staff was furloughed. One result: director Francis Collins said about 200 patients who otherwise would be admitted to the NIH Clinical Center into clinical trials each week will be turned away. This includes about 30 children, most of them cancer patients, he said."

Awwww hell yeah! Who needs to regulate pesticides, amirite? No more monitoring beef for ecoli, meat eaters. The CDC wont be able to monitor outbreaks or even create a proper flu vaccine - you could have millions of deaths on your hands. Way to stick it to those sciences, red team! Yee haw for hee haw! Gun sale permits are also going to be hampered, opps!!!! Families of American soldiers slain in Afghanistan will be denied death benefits. You shut down the panda cam too dammit:

the deal with the shutdown is it essentially gets worse the longer it goes on. And in 1995 and 1996 it went on for 28 days and ended up costing the U.S., I think, about $2 billion in economic losses, just because people don’t have money and they’re not spending it. So you have the 800,000 workers who will be furloughed, and they’ll be furloughed without pay. And when the shutdown eventually ends, they’ll get that pay. But in the meantime, you know, they’re trying to make ends meet. The government did pass an emergency measure to continue paying members of the armed services last night, so they’ll still work and they’ll still get their pay. But families whose, you know, loved ones die in Afghanistan will not get death benefits in that period. You know, civilian contractors will not, by and large, be showing up to work. The EPA will shut down almost all of its services. The National Zoo will close. Even the panda cam that lets you watch, you know, the pandas on a live stream 24 hours a day will shut down. NASA, I think, is furloughing about 97 percent of its staff. You know, people who depend on the federal government for funding for WIC food assistance will not get that. It’s up to their state whether they’ll get that going forward. Some states have obligations to do that; some states could probably care less. Heating assistance as the weather gets colder is something that is now up in the air. You know, there’s just kind of this wide range of government programs. Head Start, which is a program that has already been kind of really hammered by the sequestration cuts over the last seven months, is going to get further cuts over the next couple of weeks if the shutdown persists, as grants are now put on hold. So, you know, whether you have kids, whether you’re a college student relying on federal student loans or Pell Grants, whether you’re a senior citizen, whether you’re living in a cold region without heat, this shutdown will affect you.
All these self inflicted wounds because they hate a bill that was passed by congress, signed by a president who basically was elected on the issue, and ruled constitutional by the Supreme court. The bastard child of the Heritage foundation, RomneyObamacare aka the Affordable Care Act. Gawd forbid birth control be covered.



This woman is far more eloquent than I could be on the issue, so here:


I have a pre-existing condition and I stand to lower my premium, my deductible, and my prescription costs. I promise to return the money I save to the economy quite promptly, I'm good at that part. Just lower your gun and stop hurting people. Pretty please?

To quote Lincoln: "What is our present condition? We have just carried an election on principles fairly stated to the people. Now we are told in advance, the government shall be broken up, unless we surrender to those we have beaten, before we take the offices. In this they are either attempting to play upon us, or they are in dead earnest. Either way, if we surrender, it is the end of us, and of the government. They will repeat the experiment upon us ad libitum."

[identity profile] rimpala.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 04:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Why can't the Republicans just pass a spending bill? Why is it insisting on keeping the shutdown active?

[identity profile] paft.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 04:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Spare us the emoting.

Your entire approach to debate consists of wildly extrapolating things liberals and Democrats say while figuring out why the blatant statements and actions of Republicans and conservatives are pefectly reasonable. To this you add your usual histrionics in an attempt to distract attention away from the utter emptiness of your arguments.

The Republicans talk for weeks about shutting the government down if they don't get their way on Obamacare. They do it, and many of them are positively cheering about it, and yet you blandly pretend that it's all the fault of the Democrats for not caving in to the Republicans. And you further blame the Democrats for being unwilling to cave in to a tactic that effectively derails our system of government, offering a party that has shown itself to be both irresponsible and inhumane a method of getting its way when it comes to cuts in programs they have hated from day one.

I realize that you and Sandwichwarrior want to pretend the shutdown is an elaborate Democratic plot to make Republicans look bad, but no rational person believes this.

[identity profile] rimpala.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 04:35 pm (UTC)(link)
"NO U" is all you have? Typical.

[identity profile] sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 04:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Me neither, obviously. What would have been your preference?

At first pass, I would have held out longer. I would have framed it as a debt issue from the start. Make a freeze on the debt ceiling the condition for funding Obamacare from the beginning. If the Dems are correct in arguing that the ACA will save us money in the long run both sides win. If they are wrong It's the Dems come out looking like idiots who failed high-school algebra, while the GOP gets to cast themselves as the voice of reason standing in the way of an out-of-control federal bureaucracy.

Along similar lines I would have also attacked the the various delays and exemptions much more vigourously. play up the whole "rules for thee not for me" angle and appeal to Americans sense of fairness. Why should congressional workers and SEIU members get a pass when bob from Kansas does not. Paint it as partisan graft because that's what it is.

The problem of course is that there are established interests in the GOP who don't want to see an end to partisan graft because that would require taking their own hands out of the cookie jar as well.

Thus we have the situation we see now.

We're good for it.

Are we? Why do we keep raising the debt ceiling then? Why have a debt ceiling in the first place? If you keep raising the ceiling indefinitely, sooner or later our lenders are going to conclude, correctly, that we have no intention of paying down the principal and that they own us.

That'll be a shitty day when it comes.

[identity profile] sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 04:41 pm (UTC)(link)
*rolls eyes*

I'm sure this is all Bush's fault somehow.

[identity profile] rimpala.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 04:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Well no, it's kind of congress's fault right now.

[identity profile] paft.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 04:44 pm (UTC)(link)
c: So, Democrats are refusing to pay for cancer treatment because... they don't want these Republican tactics to work. How is that different than

Democrats: "We need to veto the shit outta that, because we wanna be able to blame them for it so we can pressure them to get a full CR through and discourage future attempts like this"

A more accurate representation would be "We can't give in to the Tea Party Republicans on this tactic because if we do, governing is going to be impossible in the future. Every time a law is passed they dislike, they'll shut down the government, and business of -- not only providing healthcare to people who desperately need it -- but offering any other government service at all not on their terms, will become next to impossible."

The embarrassingly obvious callousness of the Republican party is not a plot by the Democrats to make the Republicans look bad.

c: Are you confused?

No, though I suspect strongly that's your intent. See, I went back and looked over some of our past conversations, and a certain pattern emerged in your approach to "debate." You rely heavily on obfuscation, with a healthy dash of histrionics and the occasional false equivalence. Once that pattern becomes evident, your attempt to muddy the waters in the course of a discussion becomes much less effective.

[identity profile] sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 04:52 pm (UTC)(link)
No, but I would "get it". I wouldn't be ranting or throwing a tantrum because the opposition refused to roll-over and play dead.

[identity profile] rimpala.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 04:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Heineken, fuck that shit, Pabst Blue Ribbon?

...that one's my favorite.

[identity profile] rimpala.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 04:54 pm (UTC)(link)
That part where they just disappear like that, I always wanted an excuse to do that in a film

[identity profile] paft.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 04:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Do you post to Free Republic?

[identity profile] cheezyfish.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 04:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Are you suggesting that we just get rid of Congress so the President can pass a budget without interference because I'm starting to like the idea.

NO

Our congress is a piece of shit right now because the Republicans...

I think its about time you step off your high horse when it comes to the blame game. I'm not sure how you can place blame on the shoulders of Republicans when Obama couldn't even get a budget passed when both chambers of congress were controlled by Democrats? I mean, if he couldn't get his own party to pass his budgets, why is it the fault of Republicans that Obama can't do it with it the other party?

It's becoming very clear that the way to get our economy going again is to vote out all the Republicans. That way we can actually get things done. Because as we all know Republicans don't do anything, they just point fingers at other people.

This is a very poorly thought out statement.

[identity profile] rimpala.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 04:57 pm (UTC)(link)
I am just fucking compelled as all fuck by this fucking deep ass conversation right the fuck now.

[identity profile] rimpala.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 05:00 pm (UTC)(link)
The Republicans wanted the shutdown, they got the shutdown so of course I'm going to blame them!

[identity profile] sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 05:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Tell me, when was the last time the Senate passed a budget?

To condemn one party for failing to do their jobs while giving your own party a pass for the same is the height of hypocrisy so pare me the self righteous bullshit.

[identity profile] notmrgarrison.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 05:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Why won't the democrats vote for the bill that would open the parks?

a) Unlike the airlines, they won't miss using the parks for a while
b) they want misery, to blame on the republicans
c) all of the above

[identity profile] sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 05:10 pm (UTC)(link)
No.

But even if I did, what would it matter?

Do you post to DailyKos?

[identity profile] notmrgarrison.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 05:10 pm (UTC)(link)
and so the shutdown is happening.

Now that we're in it, who is it that won't easily re-open the parks?

[identity profile] cheezyfish.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 05:13 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm confused. Do you think that the House didn't try to fund the VA, NPS, and DC with separate spending bills that weren't attached to the ACA? And that Obama and Co. didn't block those bills?

[identity profile] notmrgarrison.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 05:15 pm (UTC)(link)
Try reading the comments you're responding to. Note phrases like funding little parts of the budget and denying cancer treatment to kids and screwing up people's vacations.

[identity profile] sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 05:18 pm (UTC)(link)
Serious question...

Do you disagree with that statement because it seems rather obvious to me. W wouldn't be in the position of having to fund the government through Continuing Resolutions if the Senate had simply passed a proper budget but they haven't passed a budget Since 2009. The Democrats didn't pass a budget in 2010 despite controlling both houses of Congress, and the Presidency. Can you imagine PBS, or any of the major networks, allowing such a caveat to escape their notice if an obstinate Republican Senate had held up the budget process?



[identity profile] sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com 2013-10-04 05:19 pm (UTC)(link)
The senate specifically but yes, pretty much.

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