However after seeing how irritated the Grizzled One was yesterday, and taking some time to do a little research, it turns out that there is a distinct possibility that I misjudged exactly WHO this outcome hurts the most.
First let's check in with Jason Easley over at Politicususa:
The right started trying to spin their last second backing off of a government shutdown last night as victory, but this could not be any further from reality. The GOP controlled House passed a bill that called for $60 billion in cuts, but they only got $38 billion. The Republicans also had to drop every single budget rider relating to the EPA, the funding of NPR and Planned Parenthood. They got nothing.
Okay good point. He is correct that the Republicans came away with far less than they had hoped for, but I was not completely convinced the Democrats could really declare victory here.
Then I happened upon a retweet from, of all places, Sarah Palin Links , which directed me to teabagging wingnut Dick Morris throwing a huge tantrum:
John Boehner has just given away the Republican victory of 2010 at the bargaining table. Like the proverbial Uncle Sam who always wins the war but loses the peace, he has unilaterally disarmed the Republican Party by showing that he will not shut down the government and will, instead, willingly give way on even the most modest of cuts in order to avoid it. He now has no arrows left in his quiver.
Having failed to stand firm for just $61 billion in cuts in a budget of $3.7 trillion, how can we expect him to stand firm over the debt limit extension or the 2012 budget? We can’t. The excellent budget proposals of Paul Ryan are no more than a pipe dream now. Boehner has He sold us out now and he’ll sell us out again.
This concession makes it clear that:
* Obamacare will not be defunded.
* The EPA will not be blocked from regulating carbon.
* The NLRB will not be stopped from forcing an end to secret ballots in union contests.
* Medicaid will not be block granted and turned over to the states.
* Welfare spending will not be cut nor work requirements imposed.
* The FCC will not be stopped from regulating talk radio.
In short, we have accomplished nothing by our hard work in 2010.
I needed some more information. And I found it over at The Obama Diary, where a fellow who calls himself Chipsticks, ventured over to the "Land O'Teabaggers" and came back with these angry missives which I assume they typed out by banging their foreheads on their keyboards whilst frothing at the mouth.
Just go away, Boehner. Thanks for handing zero and Reid a victory so they can parade about on TV. Grow a pair, you weakling.
Is anyone up for helping to Primary Boehner?
Boehner is history!!! They agreed to kill babies. VOTE NO!!!!
What’s that rumbling in the distance??? RUN!! It’s a Boehner CAVE IN!!
now that the dems know all they have to do is threaten a government shutdown and Boehner will tear-up, and cave in.
If Bachmann will cave to harry Reid, how can anyone expect her to stand up to Al Qaeda?
John Boohoo is done. He’s public enemy number 2 next to any democrat. Well, maybe he’s just “number 2”. Either way…done.
I’m becoming more convinced we need Trump.
When Obama told John Boehner, your eyes are so deep and John started crying and agreed for deal.
Its OVER. These crap heads cant even win a little battle. We must purge them from our party. We must defeat Boehner in his next election. This is the crap that lead to this revolution and they did not get the message. They will get the message now. This is a horrible cave in!!!
Yes of course I wish the Democrats would have given up less yesterday. But I have to say that after reading all this, I feel much, much better.
USTV-Raw Video: Obama at Lincoln Memorial
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqieiiRJf58&feature=player_embedded#at=56
Boy, Gryph, it's like you were reading my mind. Like you, I was worried the Dems caved on too much, as usual. But I was even more concerned with how the Repubs would be perceived. You really put my mind at ease, thanks so much! The Dick Morris quote was especially good to see. Carry on, Dems!
ReplyDeletePersonally I would not read too much in to the rantings across the internet.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, Liberals and Progressives across the board decried President Obama's decisions over caving in to the "tax cuts for the Rich" and the $38 billion in budget cuts... let alone the Guantanamo and Libya issues. But we're still supporting him, because while we don't agree with all of his decisions, he consistently gives us logic, cool, sound reasoning, and/or the best bargain he can get for going against his promises.
In other words, despite Left-rooted disgust, we still all feel he's the best man for the job.
Right, Gryphen. They are the ones who blinked, who realized they risked having their asses handed to them just because these inexperienced upstarts have charged in and taken over. Stupid.
ReplyDeleteThe GOP is a mess. It's just so patently obvious.
This was some freaky chess game situation, and though we had to give up some stuff to prevail, we WON.
Gotta see the forest for the trees.
If the Dems win again in '12, will we get everything we want by '16? Hell no. But we will get some of what we want, and we will keep these maniacs from stripping regular folks of the modicum of hard-won, generations-old protections they now have come to rely upon just for basic survival in many cases.
Now that's nothing to scoff at.
And we can jolly well seek out additional progressive candidates to carry on the work into the future, how's about that?
Had an argument with a self-professed rich progressive who said she just didn't care that much about whether someone's unemployment benefits were curtailed, if it meant compromising on this, that or the other.
That's total bs, imo.
Thanks Gryphen, I needed that!!!
ReplyDeleteYeah, the hint that Boehner is going to be in trouble is the fact that he said there was no daylight between him and the Tea Party, which is pretty much a confession that there is daylight. Also, the GOP reps are saying that DEMOCRATS in the House are going to have to vote for the budget, which means there must be LOADS of congressman opposed to this...
ReplyDeleteHa ha ha.
PS, I like how their solution is Trump. I guess TPers are so dumb they buy the lies about Trump and his "billions." Personally, I can see no quicker way to hang a foreclosed sign over the US than by electing that dipshit.
We would have it made if they were foolish enough to put Donald Trump up for election.
ReplyDeleteHave. It. Made.
I think they would even succeed in pushing sane Republicans to the Democrat side if they did that.
He would be a total, loud mouthed embarrassment, you can be sure of it. He is a celebrity, a real estate developer with a sketchy record, with life experience that does not sufficiently qualify him to be president. He believes he is eminently qualified, of course - this is America, after all! Money talks, right? No one can take that much New York arrogance for long. He is a joke.
(The hair thing alone would not wear well, though that's purely a cosmetic issue...still, you have to wonder about a guy who insists on keeping his hair like that. Just get a hair cut, Donald - we don't care that you're bald under there.)
Me too, Gryphen, me too. Just when everything seems awful, there is a ray of sunshine that comes through. Thanks for posting all those comments. You should get some kind of medal for crossing enemy lines and living to tell about it.
ReplyDeleteAnd what, are there NO republican citizens who have to use planned parenthood? especially in these hard economic times? are there NO republican citizens using medicaid programs? no republican citizens needing food stamps right now? NO republican citizens worried about their social security and medicare not being there for them?
ReplyDeletereally? I highly doubt it and I think the media need to find some of these republican citizens who have fallen on hard times or have family members who depend on these programs to let their republican leaders hear their story!
Oooowe crap heads. Really? What are these people three?
ReplyDeleteBIG wakeup call for the dems and all of us voters. the social networking really helps us all to focus and be organized. thank you all for all your hard work.
ReplyDeleteThose people are psycho.
ReplyDeleteAnd also too.....are there NO republicans that would have been royally ticked off if the government would have shut down?
ReplyDeletehow about republican military families, how about republicans who work government jobs who would have been out of work?
I think the backlash towards the republican party would have been huge if the Repubs would have forced a shut down.
Both sides needed to win something, I think the Dems won the most and will next week too.....otherwise back to last night and on the verge of shutdown.
We need to focus on campaign finance reform and raising taxes on the wealth, asap!
After reading that, sure I feel a little better. But really, most of that was extreme stuff that did not belong in a budget battle. It doesn't mean the GOP won't take some of that agenda and try to ram it through congress. It just means they couldn't do it back-door style with the budget, defund everything, and make everything suddenly a fiscal issue, the way they did in Wisconsin.
ReplyDeleteBut we don't know yet what's in this deal. It's just numbers. What I did read though, to my dismay, is that they defunded abortions in the district of columbia, which was one of the goals of the right wing. So the teabaggers should be happy about that.
O/T:
ReplyDeleteI just saw Sarah on Fox and she looked heavily medicated. You couldn't even see her eyes!
So different from her usual wild-eyed manic heavy breathing self.
It is a frightening world the Teabaggers are pursuing. Given the opportunity, I could see them demanding virginity tests, outlawing education and making religion mandatory. Did you ever see
ReplyDeleteThe Handmaid's Tale? That's what I think the Teabaggers are trying to create.
Speaking of Trump, did you see where New York Columnist Gail Collins called him a "financially embattled thousandaire"? Hahah, apparently he's sensitive about that and wrote a complaint. Methinks he doesn't have near the money he wants the world to think he has.
ReplyDeleteJust remember this, sports fans. These cuts came from a budget that has not yet passed the Congress. A budget that totaled 1.3 trillion dollars. This is a win for the GOP? I think not! Our President handed them their heads! ROFLMAO!
ReplyDeleteTheir goal was to shut the government down to make the President look bad.
ReplyDeleteFail.
When they tax the wealthy and corporations at levels from before Reagan, we will have a balanced budget, and be paying down the deficit.
ReplyDeleteAs long as the corpora-terrorists hold the country hostage, we will continue to sink into the swamp. And there will be no safety nets to catch us when we fall.
Geez~
ReplyDeleteThe RWNJs' are starting to eat their own. Have also noticed that the inhabitants of the peepond are starting to do the same thing. Couldn't happen to a nicer group of people.
Scorpie
thank you so much for your research and the comfort it has given me. this whole mess has been so confusing - i wish president obama was clearer with people about what was at stake so that he didn't get equal or all blame for a possible shut-down 0from independents and the at least half-reasonable people we share this country with. but to hear dick armey have a hissy is quite a pleasure. and those comments are priceless. i must say the spelling was surprisingly good, though - i guess the teabaggers are learning how to spellcheck. great work, gryph!
ReplyDeletewhoops! i meant dick morris. there are just so many dicks on the gop dance floor (flight of the conchords reference ;o)
ReplyDeleteI have noticed something interesting. When Bush was lying, starting wars for no reason other than to feed his ego, torturing people, detaining citizens, listening in on conversations with no warrants, the right did nothing but cheer him on. Anyone who dared to disagree with anything he said or did was 'a traitor.' The right sees everything in black and white (mostly white.)
ReplyDeleteEnter the Democratic majority. We voted for Obama because we believed he believed in what we did...an end to wars, ending the Bush tax cuts, stopping torture, and treating all men and women with respect. Most of those things have not come to pass, some due to his willingness to compromise; some due to GOP maneuverings. However, we on the left have complained when we were unhappy with him, have not held him on the pedestal the right likes to say we do, and we still support his basic tenets. We still believe in America.
I do not see that from the GOP. They want it their way or not at all. They turn on someone at the snap of a finger. They are all crybabies with no souls, as far as I can see.
Bah! Trump[ed]. A false prophet. Full of his pyramid emporium expansion, Bah, to the cult of personality.
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't have any progressive viewpoints. Nada.
Gryph, Go to Political Carnival and read how the people that voted over and over again for Rep. Paul Ryan are getting very concerned about their Medicare benefits, I hope they realize that not only will the "coupon" the GOP wants to give us for our Medicare will not give us the coverage we now have, but the Insurance Companys won't cover pre-existing conditions. I don't know too many Senior's that don't have pre-existing conditions, this is going to be fun.
ReplyDeleteThe Republicans will continue to follow the lead of the TeePeeers and the Koch's millions.
ReplyDeleteThis is what I put up over at Crooks and Liars, "Chris Hayes and Howard Fineman React to Budget Deal."
I agree with Fineman that Obama will always try to find the center of an issue, (Be sure the Republican strategists know that also.) but I read an article this evening that points out that as long as the TeePeeers keep pulling the Republicans further toward the far right radical ideology they are very effectively moving Obama to the right. They move the goal post and he moves with them.
Apparently Obama thinks that as long as he goes public with a statement avowing his new right wing positions as his own, and praising them, that his voters will not figure out that he is caving yet again.
However,since the nature of being liberal is assuming the freedom and responsibility to make one's own decisions rather than following the Judas Goat, he is increasingly running afoul of his voters.
The effect of that could very well cost Obama, justifiably in my mind, the 2012 election as his pandering continues to remove him from traditional Democratic ideology, totally removes him for the ideology of his liberal/progressive base, and gains him almost no votes from Republicans in return.
He is being played like Stradivarius by the Republicans and he doesn't even realize it. Not only are they successfully maneuvering him to literally give them what they want, they are doing it in a way that allows him to believe, or at lease publicly assert, that his decisions are his own.
I know that there is lots there that some of you will disagree with, but how many times has Obama stated a position and a few weeks later changed his position in words that are just as sincere as they had been a few weeks earlier?
If FDR and LBJ as been conciliators like Obama, the New Deal would never have existed and Obama would not even have been considered for high national office and would probably never have been accepted to an Ivy League University.
Those two men fought, brought in IOUs, yelled, LBJ certainly got in people's face and cussed people out, twisted arms and kicked ass, and used themselves up to change this country for the better. And Obama is willingly allowing large chunks of their efforts to slip away without any evidence of real regret. He should have been willing to cross the Delaware to protect Acorn,and yet he hardly seemed to care.
I find his seeming indifference to what is being attacked and lost to be tragic and utterly baffling.
Palin looking very presidential:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.palintv.com/2011/04/09/
governor-palin-on-justice-with-judge-
jeanine-pirro-april-09-2011/
What is wrong with silly sarah, other than her obvious insanity. Her eyes are just slits during the interview on Jeanine Pirro. She either just had a shit load of botox or she is completely stoned.
ReplyDeleteShe was just on Fox - is she high or low on something and what's with the squinty eyes? She can't hardly keep them open. And, she is an idiot!
ReplyDeleteI just saw Sarah on fox news talking about budget cutting and it's all on the table you betcha.
ReplyDeleteYou'll have to watch for yourself.
I turned it off.
"whilst frothing at the mouth"
ReplyDeleteLove it! It's all they ever do is froth at the mouth, rabid, raging, raving radicals that they are.
TRUMP ? ? ? They gotta' be kidding!! I just read a factcheck article thoroughly DEBUNKING every one of Trump's birther bee ess claims. Orly was too nutty, now for the 2012 election birther smear conspiracy to be kept front and center, the puppet masters have appointed Trump as the Charge d'Affairs of the birther balderdash. Guess they see Trump as more of an effective tool to promote and keep the birther crapathon alive.
"The excellent budget proposals of Paul Ryan..." Excellent??? Giggle.
All the posturing, all the demands, all the name calling, threats, and power struggles--what a waste! If they spent more time on solving the country's problems, rather than bickering over right-wing ideology, this country would be so much better off.
The one thing that can overcome the corrupting influence of big money made unlimited by the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United is social networking.
ReplyDeleteSpeak for yourself, 4:33. As a liberal, as a progressive, I'm bitterly, bitterly disappointed by Obama's consistent and premature caving to the right after all his big talk about hope and change, which proved to be nothing but bullshit. He is just as eager to stick it to poor, struggling people while protecting the financial welfare of rich people and corporations as the most conservative repug.
ReplyDeleteGryphen, you were right the first time to feel like we were sold out. We WERE sold out.
Just because teabagging morons feel the same way at their delusional end doesn't make our betrayal any less of a betrayal. It is no consolation to me that they are too fucking stupid to comprehend reality - because I CAN comprehend reality.
The GOP is going down, down, down; they are circling the drain already. The Tea Party is just the Koch Bros. on astroturf. The GOP is now really the KBP - the Koch Bros. Party.
ReplyDeleteAnything that makes fuckface unhappy makes me happy.
ReplyDeletePalin is on a loosing streak and is ready to blow anytime. No I'm not talking about what Brisket does.
Make no mistake about it. The American people are the winners. President Obama and the democrats in Congress threw down the gauntlet and stood firm on yesterday. The women in the Democratic Party came out swinging on CSPAN yesterday. They had their stuff together. I saw a presser of republican women in the House on yesterday in which they lost control and left the presser with the members of the press corps laughing at them.
ReplyDeleteBased on what I've garnered by reading a lot of material about this budget deal, it is largely the result of cuts that the president had listed in the budget proposal he released on February 11 of this year. The president REFUSED to allow the republicans to make cuts that would stifle the recovery to the extent that they wanted. Their plan was to introduce no job creation bills and make deep cuts to the budget which would plunge us back into a recession even deeper than the one we were in. This is their plan for winning the WH and a majority in Congress in 2012. Once they wrecked the economy with these cuts, they'd blame it on President Obama and the democrats, thereby making themselves appear to be the only reasonable politicians worthy of wielding power in 2012.
I also read today that had the republicans had their way on the budget, we'd be looking at a replay of what happened in Japan in the 1990s. Japan was emerging from a deep recession, the politicians implemented deep cuts, and the country was plunged back into an even deep recession. If we want things to get better, we cannot become complacent like many Americans did in November 2010 when they turned the House over to the republicans.
Anyone who is upset about the president having to do what was necessary to avoid a shutdown of the government needs to remember the reason things turned out the way that they did. Democrats did not show up to the polls in November 2010, and those who didn't have to accept responsibility for the circumstances we now find ourselves in. Finger-pointing and assigning blame at this time is not productive. Elections have consequences, and anyone who thought that losing a House of Congress wouldn't result in a situation like the one we just witnessed, wasn't paying attention when President Obama warned democrats about returning the republicans to power in Congress. It's not his fault that some didn't listen and take what he said seriously.
OT but I just caught a few minutes of SP on Fox. What happened to her eyes? She could barely keep them open. The wig was a bit off kilter as well. Despite that her words did not slur. So if she's drugged she's functioning at her usual level.
ReplyDeleteWell, that helped a litle, thanks.
ReplyDelete6:50 PM No, you speak for your damn self. I'm sick of the far left and far right fantasy purist BS. It's because of both of you we are in the mess. Both sides are tugging at each other and the President is caught in the middle.
ReplyDeleteWake the Fuck Up and think of the consequences of what could have happened if the Government shut down.
Millions of people would have been affected by it including me. My husband is a Federal employee and right now is the only source of income in our household. If the shutdown occurred, God knows could what have happened.
Most Americans don't give a Shit about what the left or right thinks right NOW. WE just want Congress to get their ACT together and GET THINGS DONE that will benefit ALL OF US!!!
Although I agree that the Republicans lost this fight, I'm afraid that the Tea Baggers may think Palin is their queen again because she WAS so unreasonable.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Gryph! I feel better now too knowing that you researched this and provided information we're not getting from the news. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteAs much as I hate the cuts, which will affect actual people, I am glad that the shutdown was avoided. I would have personally been furloughed for the number of days past 12:01 a.m. on Saturday that it would have taken Congress and the President to come to an agreement. One thing it did do was to expose the flaws of the GOP. Boehner was being led by the Tea Partiers instead of the other way around. He found himself between a rock and a hard place, a position he has placed himself in by kowtowing to the TP in the first place. I have read postings on other blogs by Tea Partiers, and they are as mad as hell that the shutdown was avoided. I hope more people realize that the GOP is not about helping anyone but the uber wealthy,
ReplyDelete"The women in the Democratic Party came out swinging on CSPAN yesterday. They had their stuff together."
ReplyDeleteMajii, sounds good. Wish I could have seen it on CSPAN. I'm not at all happy about the abortion and voucher cave-in regarding D.C., but we did at least defend PP, the environment, and a slew of other things.
These cuts were inevitable, you know they were coming, not because they're necessary, (because as Summers explained, you'd have to be a fool to think China would default on loans to the US), but because that's the climate the GOP created. When they're in office, they laugh at the deficit and say it's a non-issue. When we're in office they say the house is on fire. This was always the plan for the GOP anyway. They know they can't rollback entitlements until THEY have spent so much elsewhere, that there's literally no money left over for the country. And we know where that elsewhere was - the unfunded wars and tax breaks. That's where our money went. But it's a shame, because this country is not on a financial brink anymore. Wall street and the banks are doing fine. We all know record profits were reported the past year or so. The deficit is not putting us in any immediate danger and requires only modest cuts. But instead, we're told we need "historical" cuts. So once again, the working class is going to take it on the chin. I don't know how much more we can bear.
The real fight is not today though, it's tomorrow. We'll see if the dems stand up to them or not.
These greedy bastards have been trying since Reagan to completely rollback entitlements and restructure the tax burden to favor the wealthy. They have accomplished only some of that. They have a new formula now, applying tea party pressure to a democratic president and using FOX and Palin and all the other radicals to move the conversation to the RIGHT. The best counter to that is our own offensive, not defensive tactics.
Poor little Dicky, here's his blog:
ReplyDeleteIn short, we have accomplished nothing by our hard work in 2010.
Except we have learned a lesson.
And the lesson is this: We need to purify our party and purge it of the likes of John Boehner and all those Congressmen who vote for the budget sellout. The Tea Party must take the lead in this purifying fire. We must not let the RINOs win!
DickMorris.com will post prominently (and permanently) the names of all GOP freshmen who vote for this rotten deal. It will be in a column headed: THESE ARE THE SELLOUTS.
http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/its-no-deal-its-a-sellout/
Look around, we’re winning.
ReplyDeleteForget the corrupted media.
Forgot the so-called “progressives” who can’t see actual progress when it hits their nose.
Forget the bitter John Edwards (aka, “The Saint”) and Hillary Clinton (aka “Real Progressive!”) voters, who were never in Barack Obama’s corner – Yet now they hate him because he refuse to bow to their demands.
Forget those with short memory and short sight, who already forgot the mess we were in just two years ago, and can’t even begin to see the big picture.
Forget the professional left, they are in this for the money. They make more money when the president is a Republican, they make more money when the “sky is falling”, and they want to bring this president down just as much as the other side. This is why they told their sheep not to vote last November, and they’ll probably do it again next year.
Forget the racists from the right. They are ignorant and miserable.
Forget the racists from the Left. If this were a white president – the most progressive president in 50 years, one of the most progressives ever – they would sing his praise. The black president must be 10 times better and it still won’t be enough.
*
Forget all the above, and just look around. Look at the blogroll here, look at the blogroll’s blogrolls, read the comments, spread them around. We are awake and will not sit quietly anymore, not when a great president and even a greater human being – A man who is working for the people 24/7 - is demonized by opportunists, lunatics, ignorant, fanatics and racists.
And above all, look at these clips. This is the real world. Keep hope alive. We’re winning.
http://blackwaterdog.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/6051/