Things the Republicans don’t care about:
More than two million jobless Americans are entering the holiday season seized with varying levels of foreboding, worry or even panic over what lies ahead as they cope with the expected cutoff of their unemployment benefits…
…The federal extensions have been customary in past recessions and their aftermath, but they have become ensnared lately in political jousting over the soaring budget deficit…
…By the end of December, more than two million are set to lose their extended benefits, according to estimates by the National Employment Law Project, and about a million more by the end of January.
That “political jousting over the soaring budget deficit” only happens when it comes to giving checks to deadbeats. When it comes to paying for war or giving a tax break to millionaires, suddenly the Republicans are joustless. Meet the new Speaker, Ebenezer Boehner.
Both failed in the Senate. 53-36 on the tax cut extension for the middle class and the Baucus bill extending UE benefits.
We figured on this. So I wonder what the next move will be? The deal? 2 years of tax cuts for the zillionaire and 1 year of UE extension?
Today was purely political theatre and a huge waste of time.
It’s so infuriating.
Doubt they will do a year of UI. Prolly 3 months unless there’s a deal.
If the deal is 2 year’s rich tax cut for UI, the left will do the betrayal number and how Obama has failed.
The Repubs are holding up DADT until the tax cut is done.
It is a massive cluster—-. Almost as bad as the hcr debacle.
he has failed. did you see him showing leadership on tax cuts for the middle class?
no: he sat it out, and then ran away to say “thanks” to the troops in Afganistan, just as it came down to the wire.
shit, the dude came out on monday or whatever hailing “a new spirit of bipartisan compromise.” Maybe you missed it. Even booman pointed out what a stupid move THAT was.
The frustrating thing about this was the Democrats who gave the GOP cover by voting against. The cynics will say that this is part of the kabuki and that the tax cuts for the rich will be swapped for extension of unemployment benefits. If the Democrats do wind up with this after not putting up a unified fight, they have joint responsibility for the Hoovervilles that are going to result.
We are likely to see a double-dip recession and a investment bubble in social media as well as more “free trade” race to the bottom. South Korea next; the Colombia.
The race to the bottom continues on waxed rails.
The frustrating thing about this was the Democrats who gave the GOP cover by voting against.
You mean the Obama-enabled Holy Joe? Or the enabled Ben Nelson? Or the clown show named Jim Webb(who keeps bitching about the poor white in Appalachia .. yet always votes against them)? Feingold voted the way he did because he wants them all to expire.
Yep, those are the guys. But to call them “Obama-enabled” crosses into territory for which the only evidence is Politico stories. They might be; they might be flipping off Obama. There is no way to know.
Obama has enough to be accountable for without the distraction of potentially phony issues that let folks write off the critics.
It’s too bad those 2 million+ people are scattered across the country. If they could all huddle in shanties on the DC Mall, their plight might get media attention. Instead, their suffering will be nearly invisible, noted only by an up-tick in shoplifting and random robberies.
Right now my grocery store offers a $5 box of basic foodstuffs that is donated to our local food bank and I buy one every time I shop there. I don’t know what else to do.
you will see a collapse in Democratic support that will not be believed.
Call your senators, if they are democrats, and warn them that the tax cuts for millionaires must not be extended.
Call your Senators. Tell me another one. They are not listening. You get tallied in a yes-no category. If you use their webform, it generates a form letter without anyone reading what you wrote (that why they force you to select a topic).
We are shut out from access; we are shut out from communication; we are shut out even from having blogs represent our opinions and get results. The communication is all one way and it is “We want your support and donations, especially your donations.”
The only way for tax cuts for the wealthy not to be extended is to let them expire without a vote. The GOP is holding the unemployed hostage to not let that happen, and enough Democrats have joined them that it can’t be made a political issue.
It is sickening, absolutely sickening. But at least we like the Tea Partiers have the Second Amendment; no others, just the Second one. And no Eugene Debs in sight. And a Homeland Security state.
And yes, I am in a funk this weekend.
@Tarheeldem may be down, but not out!
I mean I’m reading comments on a blog! I think what the Guy of Data is saying is to stay active.
As the Boy of Data, I’m not especially privileged to interpret Guy’s writing. But since I agree, and I hope that everyone of us stays in the game, I want to encourage both Tarheeldem and anyone else who doesn’t write their elected representatives to keep writing. It could be a letter to the editor, a blog comment — anything!
Atta guy, boy!!
We data need to stick together.
Yep, if you write those letters I might get out of my funk. Or the weather might change.
Your comment reminded me of a song from the now distant past.
“And friends they may thinks it’s a movement.”
We were so full of hope & energy in those days, convinced that we were so right about it all. Some of us soldier on, but damn, aren’t we tired right now?
I would ask Republicans, and more importantly their media enablers, why, if the Federal Reserve can give megabanks 9-trillion (with a T) in “emergency” low-interest loans (free money), why can’t Washington spare a dime for the tens of millions of people put out of work by the high rolling gambling orgy that created this very economic crisis?
Wall Street has had rivers of money dumped on their head by the supposedly democratic government. It’s really no wonder petty and fraudulent kleptocracies sprout up wherever we lay the sacred flower of our “brave fighting men and women of the armed forces.” That’s how we do business here too, only the organized system of bribery and hypocrisy is covered up by venerable and “serious” institutions.
Off topic, it’s interesting seeing the NYTimes have a series of front-page items about the leaked cables they so pompously distanced themselves from.
I guess it’s “equal time” to balance the endless articles ghostwritten by Defense or State.
Good luck with that. Getting the media enablers to own up is as likely as pulling Rush’s plug.
I just know we’ll see the dems out in full force tomorrow, beating the rethugs over the head with their tax cut extension for this rich. I’m sure they’ll be all over the Sunday shows lambasting the thugs.
NOT.
And I am positive they’ll have some unemployed citizens on their shows blasting the rethugs.
NOT.
And I am waiting for Obama to hold a presser on how the rethugs are holding UE and middle class tax cuts as hostage to get the rich their cuts extended.
NOT.
Hell.
Yep. There’s one hell of a lot of coal in the stockings this year.