Shut Down Day 3: Mark Meadows (R) Descends into Gibberish

[paft.livejournal.com]

Just thought I'd add this fun bit of audio I found via Salon to the discussion:

Republican Representative Mark Meadows is now trying to spin the shut down as having nothing to do with Obamacare. The idea seems to be to pretend that he and his fellow Republicans are concerned civil servants horrified and suprised by the shut down (which they engineered) and eager to bring it to an end.

Unfortunately for him, NPR's Tamara Keith was there to ask a pertinent and (for Meadows) embarrassing question.

I've included a transcript after the cut, not just for readers who might not have audio available on their computers, but because the sheer incoherence of Meadows reaction is even more obvious when it's read.



Reporter: Okay, one followup, which is, is the COR really about the Affordable Care Act anymore or is it...(inaudible)

Rep. Mark Meadows: I was on the House floor today. This fight now has become about veterans and about, uh, national guard folks that perhaps, uh, reservists that are not getting paid. That's where the fight is today. Obamacare is mandatory spending. It's going on. Now what they're saying is, every day, they're saying 'no' to the people back home. That's unsustainable.

Tamara Keith: So why not run a full, just a full CR if you don't care about Obamacare anymore?

(brief, awkward silence)

Meadows: Why not vote on, on a full CR? Okay, because...

Keith: Yeah, sure, because if you're, if Obamacare isn't the issue to you anymore...?

Meadows: 'Cause it, it... twofold: One is, is, that when you when you start to look, they say 'clean CR?' That is, translates into into to truly a blank check, and, and so Obamacare is an issue for me and my constituents but what happens is today is we gotta figure a way to open it back up and, and with that, in opening it back up, when we start to look at these issues, it, it is critical that we make it...the decisions we, we make to be as least harmful as they possibly can be.

Meadows' response is a treasure trove of senseless empty jargon intended to avoid actually answering the question. "Translate into..." "but what happens is..." "with that..." "when we start to look at these issues..." arglebarglemorblewhoosh, sorry, I gotta go...

*

Comments

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Except for all those GOP reps making references like this to the Affordable Care Act:
"one of the most insidious laws ever developed by men" (http://gawker.com/gop-rep-to-cnn-anchor-youre-young-and-beautiful-but-n-1440630992)

Some other elected asshat made a public show of blaming a park ranger for the shutdown.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

What, it's on par with such nice laws like those of the Holy Inquisition? Or, why not, apartheid?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

And it was great when a war veteran yelled at that asshat it was representative's fault, not the park ranger's.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

Meadows: "It's not about Obamacare."

Reporter: "Then pass the CR."

Meadows: "Well, technically it is about Obamacare, but it's not about Obamacare."

Are Republican members of Congress really this stupid, or do they just think we are?

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

Yes.

http://swampland.time.com/2013/10/02/congressman-stutzman-he-has-no-idea-what-the-gop-wants/

“We’re not going to be disrespected,” said Congressman Stutzman during an interview with the Washington Examiner on Tuesday. “We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.”

[brother-dour.livejournal.com]

Proof that as long as there is a Tea Party, wharrgarbl will never go out of style

EDIT: Also, paft, I think 'gibberish' would be an improvement for the Teabaggers!

[unnamed525.livejournal.com]

I've taken to calling them Teatards.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

It is not a blank check. It is a check for a specific amount of money. The money amount is specified in the bill.

I watched some Repub senators explain this. The senate wanted 1.05T in spending, the House cut that down to 986Billion, the Senate ACCEPTED that number, even though it was not the number that they wanted, and still the house refuses.

So fuck off you stupid fucking member of congress. It ain't, in no way shape or fucking form, a blank check.
It's a check. For a very specified amount of money. Sheeeeet.


Given that these douche-fucks are electorally insulated from any backlash on this, just what the hell do we do? No really?

The avg GOP congressional district is over 70% white. The average Dem congressional district is 50% white. Redistricting is an evil.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Nothing to do with Obamacare?

Good grief. This was the final CR on Sept 30.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-113hjres59eah2/pdf/BILLS-113hjres59eah2.pdf

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Just because you don't understand what he's saying doesn't make it gibberish.

I would try to explain it to you, but I have better things to do than beat my head against a wall.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Well, that's generally what literally happens instead of you explaining anything, so that makes sense.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

This is old already. You've become a cartoon of yourself at this point.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

..."I really really want to address the points you're making, but I don't have time right now. There's a baseball game starting in a minute, and then a hot girl is waiting for me with a glass of wine". (Never to return to address the points, even after being prompted a few days later).

(From the list of Most Annoying Arguments That Need To Die (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1632770.html))

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Bro, that's just lame. If you have to say something, say it. Why beat around the bush like that? It creates the impression of mere posturing.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Need moar Wharrrgarrbbl.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

You have only hurt yourself with this comment.

Sometimes, your best gamble is to STFU.

Either that, or, ya know, actually explain yourself. And if you explain yourself and people still don't get it?

Well, you look WAYYY better than you do now.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

I have better things to do than beat my head against a wall.

You could slng insults on lj forums for example.

[paft.livejournal.com]

g: Just because you don't understand what he's saying doesn't make it gibberish.

It's gibberish, G. You know it. I know it. The cat knows it. I'd be fascinated to read any attempt to make sense of it, but I think we both know you're not going to try because there isn't any sense in Meadows' statement to extract.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Then go and do them while the rest of us are having an actual conversation. Gratitude in advance for your generosity, and bye.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry that I'll have to say this, but your debating methods have generally been a joke, and not a particularly funny one.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

Mr. Colbert nailed it on the head:

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Pain is the aim. Dammit. We've been warned over and over this is what the tea party wants. I don't think it sunk in until now. These people are suicidal.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

"Since approving the CR is literally just about, as Obama himself has said, Congress “paying its bills” for spending they’ve previously authorized, much of the Tea Party’s willingness to fight the CR is simply part of their larger quest to achieve legislative goals by blackmailing the executive branch. As Matthew Yglesias wrote in Slate, it’s a mindset that reflects a throwback to pre-Revolutionary days — in England – when Parliament had to bully the king with threats of budget vetoes and whatnot in order to get him to approve various unrelated things the common people wanted. This “conflict theory” approach to governance, needless to say, loses a lot of its legitimacy when the modern-day equivalent of the King has just been re-elected with 65 million votes."

...

"There’s little doubt that a CR could have been passed ages ago if Speaker Boehner had just allowed what we in Canada sometimes call a “free vote” in the House, in which all members of the legislature are free to vote however they want. Had such a free vote been called on the CR, it’s clear there would probably be enough moderate Republicans and Democratic votes to form a workable majority, and then quickly pass the approved funding bill on to the Senate and White House.

In this current era, alas, the House Republican leadership has come to embrace the obstructionist “Hastert Rule” doctrine that only when legislation meets the approval of the “majority of the majority” — that is, the majority of Republican Congressmen within the Republican caucus — can bills be brought to the floor for a vote. Anything less is to allow the possibility of bipartisan legislation, which, of course, would never do. Only three times in the 113th Congress, in fact, has Speaker Boehner tolerated free votes: authorizing aid for Hurricane Sandy victims, approving the Violence Against Women Act, and — perhaps most portentously? — attempting to resolve the 2012 “fiscal cliff” crisis."

from http://www.filibustercartoons.com/

The entire article is really good. And it's even from a self-described conservative.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

maybe O should be willing to negotiate a compromise with the GOP. that is the quickest way to end the shutdown. unfortunately, i don't think the administration is in any hurry to end it.

Said a senior administration official: "We are winning...It doesn't really matter to us" how long the shutdown lasts "because what matters is the end result."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303492504579113781436540284.html

[telemann.livejournal.com]

This ad will air on Sunday during some football games.