Let’s take a look at this nonsense that the New York Times published today:
WASHINGTON — Bipartisanship can be disorienting.
That’s why Washington has seemed so perplexed over the past 10 days. An unexpected outbreak of cooperation between President Trump and the two top congressional Democrats has upended the established order and left lawmakers grasping to divine the significance, especially Republicans who saw themselves as a strong ruling majority.
“You’ve got an unconventional president who is not limited to what the conventions of political behavior are among office holders,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican. “He is shaking things up.”
Why do we need to continue to make excuses for people who know absolutely nothing about politics even though it is their profession? What kind of dunce did you need to be not to know that the Republicans would need Democratic votes to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government operating? How stupid do you have to be to think that the House Republicans would vote to extend the debt ceiling without needing any Democratic help? I began writing about this September deadline in October of last year, when it still looked like Clinton would be president. Every single thing I’ve written since the election has been colored and informed by the fact that the Republicans would need Democratic help in September. So, it’s “disorienting”? It’s “unconventional”? It’s “shaking things up”?
That is the worst horseshit I’ve ever seen.
For much of the preceding two presidencies and the beginning of this one, the parties have largely gone their separate ways, typically finding compromise only in emergencies and the need to renew popular expiring legislation. Common ground has been very uncommon.
Do you remember when the Democratically-controlled Congress forced a government shutdown during the late stages of President George W. Bush’s presidency? Yeah, me neither. They didn’t want to fund the president’s damn war in Iraq and it took some time to negotiate a spending package, but when the time came they allowed it to come to a vote and let the Republicans create the needed majority. Still, seventy-eight House Democrats voted for the omnibus spending bill even though it was more war funding and even though the Republicans only needed them to provide about twenty-four votes.
As for the first and middle parts of Bush’s presidency, he needed Democratic votes from Zell Miller of Georgia and Ben Nelson of Nebraska to pass his 2003 tax cuts. His education bill was co-authored by Teddy Kennedy. He was able to get some support for expanding Medicare to provide prescription drug coverage. He had no trouble passing the Patriot Act. The Democrats really only drew the line in 2005 when Bush tried to privatize Social Security. As for the debt ceiling, the Democrats in the Senate provided zero votes in 2006 when they were in the minority and it wasn’t their responsibility, but they provided twenty-seven votes in 2007 when they were in the majority. They didn’t hold anything hostage in exchange for their votes, either. Their only sin was talking nonsense about fiscal responsibility instead of staying focused on the waste of burning all our money in Mesopotamia. Some of these things were emergencies and some of them weren’t, but there was a degree of bipartisanship on all of them. The end of cooperation between the parties didn’t come until the Kenyan usurper was sworn in.
Now Mr. Trump, frustrated by the inability of the Republican-controlled Congress to deliver him the victories he so craves, has decided to shop elsewhere.
“Decided” is an interesting word. It implies that he had some alternative. Here’s what a White House aide said about Schumer and Pelosi and the meeting they had with Trump and the Republican congressional leaders where the president supposedly went shopping elsewhere: “”They’re the only two people who came to the meeting with a deal to be made,” a White House aide said of Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer. “This is on the other guys,” the official said, in a reference to Mr. McConnell and Mr. Ryan.”
Or you can just take Trump’s word for it, since he’s actually telling the truth in this case:
“I’m a Republican through and through,” the president told reporters as he returned from Florida aboard Air Force One, “but I’m also finding that sometimes to get things through, it’s not working that way.”
It’s not really that complicated.
Some Republicans seemed to be left dazed by the fact that Mr. Trump was willing to reach a general agreement with Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, her Senate counterpart, on allowing undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children to remain, while not receiving a commitment for a border wall in exchange.
Anyone who is dazed because the president can’t get the votes he needs from the Democrats for the DREAM Act or to keep the government operating and to avoid a catastrophic credit default unless he caves on the stupid fucking wall is a very stupid fucking person.
Representative Gary Palmer, Republican of Alabama, spoke for many when he expressed incredulity that Mr. Trump had reached a deal that compromised on one of his key campaign pledges.
“I’d be shocked that the president made a deal that said that there wouldn’t be a wall,” Mr. Palmer said.
Rep. Gary Palmer of Alabama is a very stupid fucking person.
I could go on an on about our idiotic discourse and the downright morons we have representing us, but the fact is that their collective stupidity is so corrosive and influential that I meet maybe one person in five hundred who isn’t misinformed by at least a good chuck of what passes for their common wisdom.
Whether it’s lefties arguing that the Obama can overcome legislative roadblocks with his Green Lantern superpowers and magical bully pulpit or it’s folks on the right thinking that Trump can do the same to get his wall, I am goddamed weary from the weak-ass reasoning that is all around me.
So many people care passionately about politics, but so few have the slightest idea why things happen the way they do, or how they might actually make things different.
People are dazed and confused at the bipartisanship!
There isn’t a desk hard enough for my head.
This country’s elites, media, and political class have been operating on a mentally impaired level so long, they can’t see they are owned by Dunning-Kruger.
I think you can detect the cluelessness right there.
Not to mention the media who can’t cover a one alarm fire without lighting themselves on fire.
It isn’t YOUR head that needs a hard desk.
Remember yesterday, when we were texting about writing and I said I’d long since lst my muse?
THIS IS WHY.
It’s the larger point Schwarz makes here:
http://theintercept.com/2017/09/16/hillary-clinton-doesnt-understand-why-the-corporate-media-is-so-b
ad/
Big media’s purpose in this country, or anywhere else really, isn’t to inform and educate the public at large.
They’re for-profit businesses not non-profit organizations. Their goal is to make money.
The era of trusted “impartial” media was a blip. It’s almost always been wild exaggeration or outright lies to sell stuff. I continue to be surprised when people don’t realize this is the natural state of profit driven media.
I chalk it up partly to a misunderstanding of the First Amendment. I’ll also add that being a business, advertisers can and do often have control over editorial content, even though there’s supposed to be a wall between the editorial and business operations. VIPs can always have an impact as well. As can the business and political opinions of the owners/publishers.
Being an investigative reporter doesn’t bring you riches or job security. It has always taken guts and a willingness to take risks, including threats of harm. My hat is off to all of them who are working so hard today to bring us information on business, government, etc. in a time when corruption and consolidation of power are rampant.
The frustration coming through this post is so caustic I’m surprised it didn’t melt my computer screen. Yes, understanding the truth about a situation — particularly when that truth is not really terribly complicated, as in this case — and watching people responsible for governing the country (Congress) and for informing the population (the TIMES and other weak-minded press) constantly miss the point and misstate the issues must be truly painful.
But I urge Mr. Longman to recognize that this is in fact the situation, and to rededicate himself to continuing to paint a correct picture for those who appreciate his work while becoming less angered about the horde of paint-by-the-numbers types and Crayola artists. He’s not responsible for them — only for the quality of what he does personally. If he can manage that, I think his readers will be able to enjoy his work for a much longer time — and as I’ve said before, we really need his work. There are just so few who see things as he does and have access to any kind of public platform.
Actually McConnell and Ryan were misinformed about the meeting. They thought they were there to extract spending concessions from Chuck and Nancy, in exchange for raising the debt ceiling for the next 18 months. Imagine their surprise and the Tea Party when they discovered no such was on the menu.
Nancy and Chuck. The House holds the purse strings, not the Senate.
So,then Chuck can take a hike along with McConnell? Let the money people handle it.
Listing him second does not equal take a hike.
So you mean that even though the house holds the purse strings, he ought to be there? Funny that.
No, I’m saying on the Republican side no one has any problem listing Ryan before McConnell. So why can’t people list Pelosi before Schumer?
And you are serious?
Schumer has been by far the more visible one to this point. House needs Pelosi and Dems less than Senate needs Schumer and Dems because the house is much more purely majoritarian hence he is higher in the public eye at this point.
Who misinformed McConnell and Ryan?
My dad used to say of an unpleasant task, “It’s like banging your head on the wall–the best part is when you’ve finished.” Kind of your situation, Booman.
Righteous rant.
This observation is not at all new. And the anger is not news either. The beltway press has always been composed of idiots. An ability to strain at gnats and swallow camels whole is integral to getting a lifetime job at the New York Times:
Nothing really has changed since the Iraq war. Virtually everybody with eyes in the entire world could see there was something terribly wrong with the Bush Administration’s over hyped case for war in Iraq, yet the entire press was baying for war like the Hound of the Baskervilles and shouted down all the millions who were saying “hey! Wait just a minute here.”
We were traitors and crazy leftists and fools who couldn’t see the blinding manliness that caused idiots like Chuck Todd to have an orgasm over Bush’s manly manliness in landing in a helicopter on a carrier with a banner in the background saying “Mission Accomplished!” when it was blindingly clear to the most slow witted person who casually turned on CNN that the “Mission!” was utterly not “Accomplished”.
Then a few months later when that imbecile boast blew up in their faces, and the banner became an embarrassment, every half-witted pundit among the nodding heads decided that “nobody could have known” it would all turn into an utter shit-rain.
Nobody could have known, especially we can’t listen to the liberals who were absolutely right. NO. We can only listen to Morning Joe and David Brooks, and every other official spokesperson who was dead wrong.
So, here we are 15 years later, and those media institutions have learned nothing and admit nothing and will never allow anybody who talks sense to get on their morning shows. Because reasons.
When you put it that way, is it any wonder a lot of people were willing to gamble on Trump?
This post reminded me that it’s time to drop some more change in your bucket, Martin. I don’t know what I would do without your little place here.
This situation calls for massive doses of the Serenity Prayer. Accepting the things we cannot change is the key to staying sane.
The pundit class is bad at their jobs from our perspective. Their bosses don’t want them to say stuff that makes them uncomfortable. If they did, BooMan would have a gig on CNN right now, instead of struggling to get by.
Journalists/Pundits aren’t paid to get it right. They’re paid to tell the story and keep people in a froth. Click bait and eyeballs is all that matters. People don’t tune in to hear the facts. They tune in to hear what they want to hear.
I come here to learn how stuff works. None of us can change the fact that the American electorate is badly misinformed. We can only strive to keep ourselves well-informed. While BooMan isn’t making the inroads he wants to better informing the commentator class, what he does is still vital.
On a side note…I’m looking for suggestions on who to follow on twitter who does accurate whip counts.
I think there has been some remarkable investigative reporting going on in 2017, some by the bigger news organizations and some by lesser known ones.
But perhaps you are talking about opinion and op ed writers, bloggers, et al.
Watch WAPO and the NY Times for the lead on this process in terms of media coverage. WAPO seems to be wishy-washing as it awaits its orders from above, but the Times is apparently all in on what a “good thing” this move is.
If the RussiaGate movement begins to disappear even further into the back pages while…what’s that word again? Oh yes…”bipartisanship” (As if there were really two sides to the DC Swamp)…while “bipartsanship” gets blown up real big as the hottest thing ever. (This news cycle, anyway. And doubtless more to come.)
Then the word will come down and WAPO will shift directions.
Trump has survived the unprecedented media gantlet with almost exactly the same support THAT he had when he entered it, while the media, big business and both parties/Houses of Congess have taken a public confidence licking, and now it’s time to take care of the real business of America.
Business, as Warren harding so accurately noted way back in 1923 .
Watch.
To the consternation of non-centrists of all wings…Trump is now officially our preznit.
Did he cop out? Maybe.
Did the neocentrist opposition cop out? Mostly.
They will all meet in the profit-taking middle, and screw the rest of us. Grab us by our dicks and pussies and media-twist us into acquiescence.
He’s got a 30% approval rating. All they need is 30%…15% from each side of the electorate…and they have a majority.
Watch.
AG
P.S. You still think it’s all about right and wrong?
Ask the Native Americans.
Ask the slaves and their offspring.
Ask the immigrants who couldn’t or wouldn’t change their markings…their cultures, their skin colors, their hair, their last names, their languages, their religions…and pass unchallenged into “white ” Omertica.
Ask ’em. They know..
The smart ones do, anyway.
Bet on it.
Russiagate is in the grand jury, AG. Neither side wants to talk about it at the moment, one to allow Mueller to do his work, the other not to spawn any additional leaks.
“Bipartisanship” is as much horseshit now as it was in the Obama administration. The power shoe is just on the other foot because the Republicans in power structurally have their own Joe Libermans and Blue Dogs and principled activists marching in the streets. And they have their own scared elites ducking and covering.
As Booman has repeated, it is Republicans who don’t have the votes in the same way that Democrats did not have the votes in 2009-2010. Idiot personal and ideological divisions force dealing with the other party. And Ryan does have half the whip operation that Pelosi did in 2009. But there were still earmarks then, weren’t there? What exactly in the way of carrots and sticks does Ryan have? No one has near what Lyndon Johnson had in Congress.
I believe that this is a “signal” (You know, Tarheel, the way people talked about “signals” from Pravda back in the U.S.S.R.?), a signal that there has been some kind of compromise reached among the interested parties. Will it hold? Will one of the three parties…there are three now, the DemRats, the RatPubs and the TrumPlorables…stab another in the back before the adjustment is settled? Could be…that’s politics. Ask LBJ. But when the wolves were truly out after Trump red meat say three months ago, could this possibly have happened?
I don’t think so.
Onward and sideways…
AG
P.S. you rite:
Or a third possibility.
They don’t have shit…not enough shit, anyway…so hey’re keeping their leaks closed.
Could be…
No, they knocked earmarks out under Bush. Pelosi had a larger caucus, fewer crazies, and better management skills, and that’s why she got results, most of which got crucified on the filibuster.
Double standards seem to add to the company’s bottom line, and writers know where their salary comes from. How often has the quote been repeated here!
They are not dazed and confused. They seek Democratic failure, but allow John Conrnyn’s Texas-sized horseshit. The appropriate verb phrase is not “shaking things up.” More honest Republicans might see “stabbing in the back” or “capitulating” or “doing the best he can with Congress”.
It is both Trump and the Republican Congress who have created their situation of being painted in a corner. President Obama even graciously warned them about it in 2010.
Yeah, I agree with you.
This country is getting too fucking stupid to believe.
Anyone read the lead editorial in today’s NYT?
That’s it. A way has to be found to get BooMan on one or more cable shows, or to get his analysis to Rachel Maddow for one of her epic openings.
“Rep. Gary Palmer of Alabama is a very stupid fucking person.”
According to the Cook Partisan Voting Index, the district Palmer represents (Alabama’s 6th) is tied with Texas’s 13th as the most Republican districts in the U.S. Palmer co-founded the Alabama Policy Institute in 1989. After serving as president of the Institute for 25 years, he was elected to Congress in 2014 and is a member of the Freedom Caucus. Palmer also founded another libertarian think tank called The State Policy Network. I seriously doubt that Palmer’s constituents know much about the inner workings of these state Policy Institutes. They are very sneaky libertarian-leaning groups funded by big corporations and oligarchs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Palmer_(politician)
The Texas GOP Congressional delegation is comprised of the stupidest and most ignorant people in all of Congress. Cornyn, Farenthold, Gohmert, Lamar Smith, and the list goes on and on.
reporters seem to only see the Democrats & Republicans as unified parties that always vote straight together regardless of the issue.
We know that both parties have a bunch of factions that more or less play nice when in the minority but have trouble when they’re in the majority.