"Don't Fart And Point At The Dog"

Ted Cruz's Thunderdome and Governing By Blackmail

Excerpts from two great columns!  I apologize if you've read them already.  It's what I get for checking the Sunday papers on Monday night.

The first is from Maureen Dowd and is an all-time satiric classic!  The other is from Nick Kristof and is reminiscent of (and better than) "What If The Tables Were Turned?" by some wild-eyed blogger you may know.  Click on the links for the full reads.  Worth it!
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MAUREEN DOWD

Welcome To Ted Cruz's Thunderdome

A PLACE ONCE CALLED WASHINGTON D.C.

An ape sits where Abe sat.

The year is 2084, in the capital of the land formerly called North America.  The once beautiful boulevards are now strewn with the detritus of democracy -- scraps of the original Constitution, corroded White House ID cards, and stacks of worthless bills tumbling out of the Treasury.  Thomas Jefferson's utopia has devolved into Ted Cruz's dystopia.

A gaunt man and sickly boy trudge toward the blighted spot that was once the WW II monument, the scene of the first shutdown skirmish.  They take in the gray void, the barren lost world.  "How did this happen, Papa?" the boy asks.

"It started," the man says "very small with a petty fight over a six-week spending bill, but quickly mushroomed out of control."

"Whose fault was it, Papa?" the boy presses.

The man tries to explain:  "The Grand Old Party, proud haven of patriots who believed in strong national security and fiscal responsibility, was infected with a mutant form of ideology.  In the infected Tea Party politicians, brain function decreased and social de-evolution occurred.  They began ignoring their basic survival instincts.

"It's hard to believe now, but they were fixated on stopping an effort to get health care to those couldn't afford it.  It eventually led them to destroy all the things they said they held most dear."

The boy is confused.  "They killed America because they didn't care about keeping America alive?" he asks.

"Well, they didn't seem to understand what they were doing.  In the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, they believed they were doing the right thing.  And today, what's left of the world is being run by Julian Assange from what's left of the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, and by some old right-wing nut-job in a cabin up in Idaho."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/opinion/sunday/dowd-welcome-to-ted-cruzs-thunderdome.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0
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NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Governing By Blackmail

Suppose President Obama announced:

Unless Republicans agree to my proposal for gun control, I will use my authority as commander-in-chief to scuttle one aircraft carrier a week into the bottom of the ocean.

I invite Republican leaders to come to the White House and negotiate a deal to preserve our military strength.  I hope Republicans will work with me to prevent the loss of our carrier fleet.

If they refuse, I will be compelled to begin by sinking the USS George Washington in the Mariana Trench, with 80 aircraft on board.

My example is ludicrous.  No one would do that.  But if we default because of extremist House Republicans, the cost could be much greater to our economy and our national security than the loss of a few aircraft carriers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/opinion/sunday/governing-by-blackmail.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Liar

Liar

John Boehner was all over the Sunday news shows saying that he didn't have the votes in the House to pass a "clean" CR to fund the government and end the shut down.  (His minions prefer the dirty version which makes routine budgeting insanely contingent upon gutting Obamacare.)  Boehner insisted that unless the President and the Dems made "concessions", the shut down would continue, the debt ceiling deadline would force the government into default, and Obama would be to blame.

The same day, a big front page story in the NY Times explained how this crisis was planned months ago and has been stage-managed throughout by the real leaders of the GOP:   The Koch brothers PAC Americans For Prosperity, the Heritage Foundation, former AG Ed Meese, and other far-right wingnuts.  That's right, all this crap didn't just suddenly appear out of the blue -- these obsessive assholes have intended it, have wanted it.  The shut down is their flimsy blueprint for derailing Obamacare.  It has nothing to do with lack of concessions and compromises and negotiations.  Those are just pre-planned talking points, and there's absolutely nothing to negotiate anyway.

So not only is the Weeper of the House full of shit when he faults Obama for the doomed tactics of the suicidal lemmings in his own party, he doesn't count very well either.  He does have the votes to pass a clean CR.  Somewhere between 17 and 24 House Republicans have publicly stated they would vote for a straight-up funding deal unencumbered by any Tea Party lunacy.  Along with the House D's, that would be enough to pass a CR, and it would pass in the Senate too.  It's not that Boehner doesn't have the votes, he just doesn't want to take the vote.  The puppet-masters are telling him not to.

Boehner, you are a big, fat liar!

  

  

Hired To Be Fired

The Reds and the Indians both made the postseason as wild-cards, and both promptly got bounced.  (I'm suddenly a Pirates fan.)

Adding insult to injury, the Reds abruptly fired manager Dusty Baker, after saying just the day before he'd be back next year.  It's a sad commentary on the impatience of our times.

As a 20-year manager for the Giants, Cubs and Reds, Dusty Baker has a winning record of 1671-1504.  He's a 3-time NL Manager of the Year.  He has managed 5 Division champions.  He took his team into the postseason 7 times, and just missed twice.  He managed the Giants to the World Series in 2002.  His Reds teams made the playoffs 3 times in 6 years.

This season, the Reds clinched early, but lost their wild-card game.  Somehow, this is all Baker's fault.  It's not, of course, but baseball has a 150-year history of blaming the manager for players' failures.

There are 30 major-league teams.  After a very long season, 10 of them qualify for the postseason. Only one will win the World Series.

Once "in", anything can happen.  A little hot streak, a little luck, and who knows?  Oakland A's GM Billy Beane (Moneyball) calls the postseason a "crapshoot".  The important thing, the hard thing, is to make the postseason, then just take your chances.  Dusty Baker's track record of taking his teams into the playoffs is better than most.

Postseason or not, managers must make do with the team they've been given.  As former NFL coach Bill Parcells said, "I make the dinner, but I didn't buy the groceries."

I guess the Reds just didn't like Dusty's cooking anymore.  I'm sure another team will show him to their kitchen soon enough.

"I Am Obamacare"

I snagged these real-world testimonials from a posting on a popular website.  Pretty powerful.

Among the comments below the post was one from an Obamacare hater.  He smelled a rat and wondered how the first woman pictured was able, as her sign says, to get insurance and surgery already when "Obamacare just went into effect on October 1st."

What a moron!  The ACA has been effective since 2010, and one of the first things it did was establish "PCIP" high-risk pools to guarantee coverage to those previously "uninsurable" due to pre-existing conditions.  

For those of you who claim to still be "confused" by Obamacare, willful ignorance is not an excuse.  By now, so much accurate info on the ACA is so readily available, your confusion has become your choice.

Stephen Colbert's Hilarious Take On "Adorable Care Act" Tweets

Recently, the White House began using its Twitter account to promote the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare with cute animals touting the "Adorable Care Act":

Stephen Colbert couldn't resist and promptly fired up this comical parody:

Literally LOL!!

What If The Tables Were Turned?

[Another snarky online comment to Boehner and Tiberi.  I'm sure I'm on their shit list by now.]
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You guys are like a really bad comedy act.  With your chuckle-headed attempt to trade 6 weeks of funding for the death of an existing law, you blithely shut down the government, threaten default, create real hardships for real people, then claim to be shocked -- shocked! -- that no one will "compromise" with you, no one will "negotiate".  You sit in conference rooms all by yourselves and wonder why nobody else showed up.  It'd be funny if it weren't so pathetic.

You should have learned a long time ago, gentlemen, that most adults don't respond well to threats, blackmail, and ultimatums.  That's just what you're doing, and it won't work.

What if the tables were turned?  What if, during routine budget talks, a Democratic House majority said to a Republican Senate majority and a Republican President, "We'll agree to all your numbers, but only if you agree to an assault weapons ban and universal background checks.  Oh, by the way, we also want to repeal and replace the 2nd Amendment.  And if you won't accede to our demands, we'll just shut down the government."

Democrats would claim they just want to "negotiate", but both your party and the American people would howl in outrage and vilify the Democrats for their despicable hostage-taking tactics.  The people would be well-justified in their anger and would never forget who slipped the turd into the punch bowl.

You might want to step outside your echo chamber and think about that.