Our government is so paralyzed with gridlock due to divided government, stupid rules, gerrymandering, and idiotic election laws that it threatens to bankrupt political bloggers who are left with almost nothing to debate.
How many times will you come back to hear me write that nothing happened?
I come here for truth. You frog ponders are one of my, perceived, best sources. I lurk and learn from you. Your value is that you and yours have a better clue than I have. I’m totally lost without internet blog news. News Corp. is not about news but you are.
BTW I would like you ponders, to share an evaluation of the currant DOJ.
In any case, thank you all
Good question.
There’s too much talk in bloggo world, not enough action. it’s obvious we’re getting nowhere until we get together and start making some demands.
I can read almost anywhere about what did or didn’t happen.
I come here to find out the “why or why not” of it all.
I come for the Grateful Dead videos.
I’ll keep coming back as long as you’re around. But I have to admit, I keep finding fewer and fewer posts that I’m really interested in digging into, and it’s got nothing to do with the quality of the analysis or writing. It’s more like, how long could you maintain interest in your favorite sport if at some point 96% of the games started ending in ties? I can’t keep track of the various budget standoffs at this point; they all run together in my mind. Oh, Paul Ryan has a budget with a frilly title and all the exact same shit as his last budget? Who knew?! Liberals are upset about some small concession Obama is making to congressional republicans that won’t be accepted anyway? Fascinating shit…
That said, even though I’m less engaged than I used to be, at the same time I appreciate the site more for actually having the tolerance to comb through this bullshit. I’ll keep reading and donating.
Cross-posted from my latest diary – No Sympathy for Boston from Dagestan.
It’s tough finding the diplomatic road when your first reaction is narcissistic.
Is shared and read by many, even today … Who is Paying Karin McQuillan?
You could always make Arthur a front pager. ;^)
Yes, you could.
Why?
Besides the fact that I have a real, individual take on what is going down in the U.S.?
Here’s why.
You write above:
You are missing the point, Booman, That “divided government,” those “stupid rules,” the “gerrymandering, and idiotic election laws” etc. are what is happening here, they are a bipartisan (read “UniParty”) effort and they are happening on purpose!!!
They are the fix about which I so often write. They are the instruments of that fix at the very least.
“Political bloggers who are left with almost nothing to debate?”
Perfect.
Bore the marks into compliance on every level and then rip them the fuck off.
I will be back again and again myself, until people realize that “nothing much is happening” is the big, big lie.
Meanwhile the U.S. is responsible for hundreds of deaths worldwide every day in its blood-for-oil, blood-for-profit wars…both overt and covert…and domestically the PermaGov-owner corporate interests are working as hard as they can to further subjugate the American people into deeper and deeper wage-slave debt so that they can lower wages and benefits in order to be able to compete with the slave-wage workers of the world that have been held at that level by our blood-for-profit wars.
“Nothing happening!!!???”
Hell, man. That is the story.
Front-page me and your blog would start to sizzle.
Bet on it.
AG
If you were a frontpager the scroll wheel on my mouse would wear out due to your love for
long
drawn out
vertical
comments.
I can’t afford to buy a new mouse right now.
Bet on it.
You can’t afford to buy a new mouse right now?
Blame the PermaGov.
You don’t like my spacing?
OK, this one’s for you.
“Space is the place.”-Sun Ra
You dunno who Sun Ra was? I’m not surprised.
Find out here.
You don’t like space?
You jes’ lazy.
AG
P.S. Obligatory political content:
See the personnel list on the 1st link?
Pat Patrick – electric bass (1,2), baritone saxophone (4), vocal (5)
That’s MA governor Deval Patrick’s father.
Bet on it.
We are evolving.
Come on along for the ride.
Has anyone here seen 42 [movie]? it’s pertinent, imo
I have not but I rarely go to the movies anymore. I wait until they are available on TV or go to the library for the DVD.
just came out so won’t be available for a while. if you decide to see it in the theater I’ll be interested to hear what you think
David Brooks
The gift that keeps on giving…
All my friends are here. Where else would I go?
Last night was the new Robert Redford special that revisited Watergate. Commentary from Rachel, Jon Stewart, John Dean and of course a get together of Hoffman, Redford with the Bernstein Woodward duo.
Well done and a none too subtle warning. Without blogs who daily, no hourly, are willing to chase down the dark side, we would all be in Guantanamo whilst Nixon and Cheney played emperor.
Sounds very interesting. I wonder what Woodward thought of it.
We need the “hammers” to keep hitting at and breaking open the information that gets crusted over with indifference. Too bad most of the media is operating with Nerf TM guns these days.
And speaking of Guantanamo (derailing topic ahead), WHY do we have now 77 prisoners participating in the hunger strikes, more than half of the 166 prisoners, still, contained there. Still! W. T. H., Obama? Sorry if this is off topic, but I’m re-astounded and appalled by this.
National gridlock has its interesting aspects, as does complete Congressional paralysis. They just aren’t policy aspects or implications, but indications of mounting social/cultural failure. A nation with a non-functioning legislature and an ever weakening executive/regulatory/enforcement branch is a failed state. Which is a bigger deal than the implications of enacting some small potatoes policy or other.
Of course, you’ll always have foreign calamities and our response thereto, always interesting stuff. Another illegal US war of aggression is certainly not out of the question. And in Insane Gun nation you can count on frequent gun violence and mass killings. (Of course, you must forget about any “debates” or logical “policy” implications…)
Because Congress is indeed in a total war of attrition, trench warfare, where each side is attempting to get to the next trench line, and “advance” maybe 200 yards. “Defeat” is just another filibuster, “victory” a one month debt extension or proclamation of National Cheese Week. They are fighting largely over denying a Dem prez any legislative accomplishments—party over country, always.
And it doesn’t appear that too many citizens care much that the Congress is completely paralyzed. Certainly the corporate media doesn’t. It’s not really a subject of concern. Anyway, there won’t be much legislatin’ with (another) Do Nothing Repub Congress. One has to assume voters at least suspected this after the performance of Boner’s Boneheads in 2010-12. We’ll be lucky if Repubs agree to pay the bills every third month. It could be (Dark) Comedy Gold!
I keep coming back for the free fruit baskets. Oh, have I said too much?
I’m hanging around for a reprise of the BooMan coffee mugs.
“I’d buy that for a dollar!”
Classic Robocop quote.
And T-Shirts!!!
There’s always political history. I’ve been trying to figure out what the Whigs were all about lately, and one thing I’ve learned is that they actually expelled John Tyler from the party while he was president. I think they actually voted twice to expel him. So there’s a party in disarray.
William Henry Harrison had been elected in 1840, and the Whigs also took both houses of Congress, so they were all set to start pushing Henry Clay’s legislative program. Then Harrison died a month after his inauguration, and Tyler turned out to be a WINO and started vetoing their bills.
Most importantly, Clay wanted to create a new Bank of the United States, so this was yet another round in the bank wars that started in 1791. So it’s also part of the prehistory of the Federal Reserve.
And so on.
If only the “nothing happened” had begun in 1981. Imagine all the dreadful things that would have been avoided:
S&L debacle
Gulf War (perhaps)
DADT
NAFTA
Telecom Dereg
DOMA
Gramm-Leach-Bliley
Commodity Futures Modernization
9/11 (perhaps)
Patriot Act
Iraq War
…
treadmill maintenance