Da Nile isn’t a river in Egypt. It’s part of a mass Republican hallucination. On a related note, a lot of people don’t realize that the president’s approval numbers are heavily impacted by what progressive Democrats think about him. Just like a lot of the people who express disapproval of ObamaCare are more in favor of actual socialized medicine, when the president was talking about bombing Syria his numbers tanked because his most ardent supporters were disillusioned. Now that he’s taking a tough stand against the Teahadists, his numbers have jumped five points even in a Fox News poll.
But nothing makes a president look better than taking a strong stand and winning, and that made people quickly forgive the Syria madness. It will also bolster Obama’s numbers with his base and with all sane people after this current crisis is resolved completely in his favor.
Let’s raise a glass to the Battle of Germantown.
I wonder, if America had stayed British would they have made us better, or would we have made them worse?
pro-monarchy, are we?
Not unless it’s me.
That said, there are definite advantages to having a head of state that isn’t a head of government. I think it is also a strong proposition that a parliamentary system is much better and certainly more responsive than what we have and provides for a wider range of representation while have no obvious disadvantages to the aristo-conservative fuck up that is our government.
I do think Britain runs too much on tradition, but I’m generalizing a bit to western parliamentary societies as a whole.
At the same time, Britain while having issues of its own in regards to class is still a society even after Thatcher, where the least off are better cared for than America, and a society safer than America (a quarter the murder rate). They certainly abolished slavery in a better way than America.
Susie made me think about Sandy Denny for the first time in a long time.
B is promising Keystone and means testing Medicare and even Social Security through the chained CPI. How does that do anything but enrage his cohorts when they don’t materialize? Do they have a vote of reversal? I cannot fathom what is in his head.
I’m with you – how do we get this message through the bubble?
wait – actually I’m not sure I understand the post I just agreed with! Those things need to NOT materialize – that’s what I’m saying – especially chained CPI. Means testing means that really rich people have to pay more for medicare right? I’d prefer single-payer, but the most important thing is to make health care affordable for the middle class. So of those three things I think chained CPI is the worst thing Obama could possibly do to us.
Define really rich. No matter how it starts it will ultimately mean that one must exhaust all IRA’s, 401K’s and such before receiving SS. Then they will deduct any pension. Yes, that was proposed by the Catfood Commission.
Basically, the President wants to change SS from an earned entitlement into a welfare program.
Oh, I agree. But this is what is out there.
Robert Costa … It hasn’t been announced, and you won’t hear about it today, but the final volley of the fiscal impasse, at least for House Republicans, is already being brokered. And according to my top sources — both members and senior aides — it won’t end with a clean CR, or with a sprawling, 2011-style budget agreement.
It’s the wish list minus defunding Obamacare.
I just don’t see how playing into their fantasy does Boehner any good, when it blows up in their faces. Shouldn’t he be trying to chill them out?
“And according to my top sources — both members and senior aides”
Yeah I’m still reading but this insider crap is crap.
Who says they won’t materialize? Obama’s goals are not ours.
I believe they will not materialize BEFORE they get a clean CR and raise the debt limit. That is as far as I will go.
I’ll buy that much.
Medicare is already means tested.
Maybe they want to go for Part A, too.
On claims like that, I would check the source. The GOP and its friends (like Politico) have been putting out some of Boehner’s Grand Bargain fantasies.
I’ve seen no confirmation of anything from the D side or the White House.
Meanwhile more Republican House members are embarrassing themselves on videotape. Meadows claims that his constituents wanted this shutdown (Heath Shuler’s old district). Renee Ellmers wants her paycheck but is willing to delay getting it until the end of the shutdown; then she wonders why 7000 Fort Bragg workers (her district) got laid off. Lee Terry of NE-02 says that he definitely wants his paycheck is not giving it away because he has been working. Missing the point that lesser mortals than Koch-high Congressmen have been working too.
And then there’s the tape of McConnell and Rand Paul strategizing when the mike is on. And giving away the game.
And federal employees unions are beginning to demonstrate. One significant one in Beaufort SC (Parris Island MCS) and getting local coverage.
Dems better start recruiting some strong candidates. A roster of 435 of them might be a good idea. There are a lot of surprises possible a year from now if the President and the Dems hold fast and the media continues to the get the Republican showboaters on video.
So far the crazies have not sensed any danger at all.
ABC7 has been pushing this and I heard a Bloomberg editorial that called for lifting the debt limit, ending the shutdown, more business tax cuts and chained-CPI.
derp.
The other Socrates.
Laura Hudson, Wired: Die Like a Man: The Toxic Masculinity of Breaking Bad
And so proceeds the Congressional and right-wing theater of cruelty in the budget cuts intended to reduce “dependency”, that is, force all those unemployed folks to “act like a man” in the exact sense that Walt understands it. And in urban neighborhoods and poor rural communities, increasingly they are doing as Walt did. That is the result of Republican policy.