We had the BooMan greater family Christmas today, so I was hanging with my parents and brothers and nieces and nephews. We had a very nice time, but I haven’t been following the news. I read this piece in the New York Times, which kind of gave me the basics. What are you hearing?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Not that he is known for being right about most things, but Lieberman says that he would be shocked if there is a deal tonight.
Brian Beutler at TPM has a good piece.
I think that’s the best article I’ve seen yet. Thanks for posting the link.
My only question after reading the article is about the last line:
“That’s why nobody ran to the cameras today to predict that the negotiations had failed.”
I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to relate only to the previous paragraph about Boehner or to the entire article.
From Beutler’s current lay of the land:
“Republicans also have a penchant for resetting the scales after cutting deals. They refuse to count those discretionary spending cuts Dems agreed to in 2011 toward Congress’ broad effort to draw down budget deficits, and so Democrats are heavily reluctant to offer up any spending cuts right now — particularly with a debt limit fight on the horizon.”
Yeah, that first part. That’s some bad, bad-faith negotiating they’re doing there. Journalists should not allow bullshit to stand as fact.
Wow – that is a long-missed handle.
Sounds like the last GOP offer had Social Security cuts in it. Which tells me they really aren’t very fucking serious about trying to resolve this thing before Monday.
Chained CPI demand abandoned by GOP.
But brought back from the dead by the President on Meet the Press yesterday.
Damn, the Obama concern trolling in that Times piece is a pain in my ass. Stuck in the middle of the story is this unattributed assertion:
“Both sides worry that the confrontational tone that the president took on “Meet the Press” was not helpful.”
The reporter then proceeds with three supporting quotes for this assertion from Republicans and absolutely none from Democrats, not even on background.
In other words, it’s a day ending with the letter “y”.
Someone should read beat reporters that piece from Ezra Klein last week where he joined Orenstein and Mann in getting the big lightbulb over his head and documenting that the false equivalence game is killing our government’s ability to solve problems, and we just have to call the Republicans extreme and insane when they’re extreme and insane.
Really, all the kool kids can do it if they try! You don’t have to be Better Than Ezra; you only need to be just as good.
Really? I saw that interview on TV. The Pres just said that he would not throw SS over the cliff for a short term extension, but he would for a long term extension. All the Teabaggers were laughing at me, “See what voting for him, got you, Tony?”
I just read Steve Benen’s update from earlier this afternoon. I’m ready to go over the cliff already. On January 4, I think we can do better than anything else we can get now.
I will just be relieved when the stake has finally been driven into the heart of Bush’s tax cuts for the rich.
If Obama stands firm on neutralizing the debt ceiling, maybe we can get something done in the country, or at least the republicans will be outed for even those who don’t pay much attention.
Dream on. All the negotiating has been to continue the 15% rate on unearned income and no inheritance tax. That was conceded long ago. What they are wrangling about is the largely symbolic upper rate, how much entitlement cuts where will be and how long the unemployment compensation will be extended for.
Tonight We Saw Why It’s Basically Impossible To Cut Entitlements
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-chained-cpi-offer-in-the-fiscal-cliff-shows-why-entitlement-refor
ms-are-so-hard-2012-12
There are two big stories with entitlement cuts.
One is that politicians are open to them in theory, but then don’t want their fingerprints on the weapon when it’s time to do the deed.
The other is that it’s usually Republicans that end up killing entitlement tweaks. Every time DC gets close to a “grand bargain” (something which Obama would clearly be willing to sign off on), Boehner or his caucus kills it.
And that makes sense. If you’re the party of fighting deficits, then you have a lot of lose politically by taking deficit reduction off the table in the form of actual progress.
Just stumbled onto this.
BBC News – Hillary Clinton ‘in hospital’ with blood clot
Secretary of State Clinton hospitalized with blood clot: spokesman | Reuters
.
Had just posted a diary after an earlier comment.
Sorry, I didn’t see yours.
so sorry to read this news.
And so over the precipice we go…
(MSM dramatized version)
McConnell says he needs a dance partner. This may signal he is about to come out of the closet.
Is this why McConnell wanted To talk with Biden?
Boo, you just need to go read the Cliff Notes.
OK, I’ll just let myself out…
Looks like a big day ahead for our corrupt Iraqi Parliament West, as it attempts to complete a year’s bizness in 24 hours, with votes as the ball falls in Times Square. I’m sure it will all be very well thought out by old farts working through the night on no sleep. Quite a system…
Anyway, it seems clear that the idea of deficit reduction has been thrown out–wisely–so now it’s just a game of getting the most for one’s side. That means Repubs will permanently protect their plutocrats from any meaningful tax increases, be it income, capital gains or estate, in exchange for Dems getting some short term extension of unemployment comp for the masses. In short, a poor deal, just to get their precious deal.
So we’ll lose our chance to EVER get significantly more revenue from our nation’s abusive plutocrats for basically nothing, and then Repubs will get back to holding domestic spending hostage over the debt ceiling in January.
Lose/Lose. Obama should veto the whole stinking thing, but he won’t.
I read the article from Jonathan chait & what he’s said was that the WH thinks it’s the Senate Dems (particularly ConservaDems) who would cut them at the knees to save themselves & make a deal that undercuts the WH. certain groups always complain that the admin doesn’t have dem party back but rarely admit that on occasion the dems undercut the Prez
Prediction:
Waterford crystal globe on the left half of the screen; one House of Congress or the other on the right half of the screen. Boehner balks (in the baseball sense). Time runs out. GOP gets the blame, but Boehner is the scapegoat.
I am “hearing” that Obama and the Dems have either been:
1-Given permission by the corporate masters of both parties to essentially put the Ratpubs out of business…a two-party fix system that is so blatantly populated on one side by a group of people who are headed for the tarpits cannot by sustained past a certain point of tarpitting, and it appears to me that said point has just about been reached. In 4 more years the already scrofulous-looking population of the Republican national convention will look appear on television to be the geriatric ward of a whites-only country hospital.
Or…
2-The Dems have been instructed to fade a little so that the Ratpubs can be re-populated over the next several years by a media-based equality game of some sort. The true centrist act. You know…”Both parties are at fault here!!!”
We’ll see. Very soon.
If the Dems get to the edge of the so-called fiscal cliff and cop out at the last minute “for the good of the country” then it’s #2 and the attempt to continue the present alternating fix scheme will continue.
If they don’t cop out then they are going for the Ratpub jugular and the PermaGov plan for 2014 (2016 at the latest) is to have Dem majorities in both houses and a Dem preznit as well. Would that mean one-party rule? So nu? If the American public is so media-hypnotized that they will swallow anything…chemical-laden Subway sandwiches as “healthy food,” stupid, violent movies as heroic fare or people like McCain and Romney as serious contenders, all the same kind of necromancing/mediatrancing…then they will swallow a de facto dictatorship as well.
Watch.
Any way it goes the PermaGov will win in its own fairly short-term manner. As long as it controls the media and the media remain in control of the minds, bodies and emotions of the vast majority of Americans, whatever it wants to do will get done.
A naked preznit?
Hans Christian Anderson understood way back in 1837.
Yes he did.
Long term?
Them chickens is gonna come home to roost some day. It’s just a matter of when.
Bet on it.
Bet on it.
AG