There have been a bunch of truther ads on the trains here. I hope we continue to see weird ads appear.

Crazy to think a second reconstruction could solve some problems?

Did you not learn your lesson the first time?

I'd be more inclined to say a second Sherman's March would do much more good.

And to think this thread had been pretty dead for the last couple of months!

SI

Eh, it'll take better bait than that to get anyone to play would be my guess.

I was thinking more about how the debt ceiling/budget negotiations got people in here and back to the old games pretty quickly

SI

Hehe - I need to play more of that this weekend.

Here's some chutzpah for you.. on the one year anniversary of the Sandy Hook Massacre, a group of gun lobbyists want to celebrate "Guns Save Lives" Day:

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/politi...ave-lives-day/

Cruz does seem to have support from a "core" group. Not sure if the straw poll is valid ... its got some credible names on it but don't know who Ben Carson is.

Cruz the overwhelming favorite in conservative straw poll - NBC Politics

Kudo's to Obama for his 2 wins and also trying at Somalia.

al-Libi is on a boat being interrogated instead of Gitmo. I think they should fly him to Bagram like the other guy.

Libyan terror suspect Anas al-Libi being interrogated at sea - CBS News

I don't get Karzai. He must have a lot of confidence in Afghanistan being able to stand on its own if the US pulls-out. If I was him, I would be signing whatever needed to be signed and doing what the US needs to stay. Good chance he ends up like the other PM right after the USSR pulled out.

Senior Pakistan Taliban commander captured in Afghanistan | Fox News

Dr. Ben Carson is a surgeon who said of ObamaCare-"It's the worst thing to happen in this nation since slavery."

Ben Carson: Obamacare worst thing to happen to the U.S. since slavery - Washington Times

Well that was stupid of him, saying was bad is not going to make him popular with deep south conservatives.

Which complements Tavis Smiley's statement below I guess.
Tavis Smiley: 'Black People Will Have Lost Ground in Every Single Economic Indicator' Under Obama | NewsBusters

Wonder if the press would spend as much time on a conference that chose Bernie Sanders and Sean Penn 1 and 2?

Joe the not-a-plumber comes right out and says it:

Um whoa - is that for real and not a parody?

Actually if you check the link to the full article at the bottom, it takes you to the TheBlackSphere.net. There it shows the article was written by Kevin Jackson, who is black. Not nice of the Plumber there to make it look like he wrote it.

And too bad for him and the original writer because the next President will likely be an equally if not more Liberal Democrat and a woman on top of that if Hillary runs.

I do think the recession was a primer for the decline e.g. just because the recession officially ended in 2009 doesn't mean the Financial crisis during the Bush years didn't continue to linger and impact black Americans.

However, it has been long enough and it is happening in Obama's second watch. I do think in the next couple years (assuming we don't go into another crisis) the numbers will get better for black Americans.

America Needs a White Republican President

I saw a billboard in St. Louis. It said: "If Aliens Land Remember The 1st Commandment."

Kind of on par with the secession billboard.

So,the thought was that the Republicans were looking to trade cancelling out the second round of sequester cuts to get entitlement reform, but since they've overplayed their hand here, and taken such a kicking in the polls, the Democrats new goal is to only use the first year sequester cuts as a short term, and look to raise the spending in the negotiations.

edit: New tweets from Costa:

per aide, McConnell's chief fight now is to protect BCA spending levels set in '11. McConnell's fear is that Dems, if they get some more momentum/House Rs stall, will req change to BCA levels, and he's trying to prevent that. top Sen GOP aide: "Dems want to spend $80 billion more next year than the BCA allows". McConnell's end-'13 goal, per his broader circle, was to only trade sequester relief for entmt ref (Medicare age raise, CPI, etc). But the shutdown/CR fight + debt limit showdown pretty much spoiled (for now) McConnell's (and Ryan's) plan for seq/entmt trades. So McConnell working not just to solve current impasse, but to protect BCA levels--his chief leverage pt for future fiscal talks. Big pic: McConnell World fears if Ds get seq relief now, that card will be hard to play in future, makes revenue the chief trade option and McConnell is never going to "go there" on revenue, same goes for most Rs. so they want to save seq relief for smthg other than CR/DL. Sen Rs griping that House's stumbles/Cruz's defund push didn't achieve repeal or delay or anything-except now putting BCA levels at risk

So in short, the Senate Republicans are furious that the defund/delay Don Quixote tactics by the House have not only failed to acheive anything, but emboldened a unified Democrat caucus to try to push for an end to the second year of sequestration (and perhaps even a rollback to pre-2011 numbers). The Republicans have to get something out, because they're standing on the cliff edge, and are trying to find a way to step away from the cliff that doesn't result in either the Tea Party or the Democrats pushing them off the cliff.

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising Americas debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our governments reckless fiscal policies. Increasing Americas debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that the buck stops here. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."

Senator Barack Obama, 2006

Here's a thought ... let's just leave it shut the fuck down. Til midterm elections if need be.

But everyone knows if they raise the debt limit this year that it was George Bush's fault. You can't fault Obama.

And that would be the end of the Republican party AND the conservative movement.

Doubtful. Not in more than a small handful of districts I imagine.

And it might be even less as people figure out just how much shit the gov't handles (and spends money on) that it really ought to be out of.

GOP House vs GOP Senate.

T-4.

Government shutdown debate grates on Congress members’ moods - The Washington Post

Hopefully some positive news before tomorrow morning.

Last Hope? Still Stuck And Running Out Of Time, Reid And McConnell Meet On Debt Ceiling

Good God they try really hard with the scare tactics and end of the world stuff don't they?

Stocks Slip as Budget Talks Falter in Washington - ABC News

By the way here the actual quote if you click the article. "The Dow Jones industrial average was down 31 points, or 0.2 percent, at 15,205 in midday trading Monday." Wish I could make this stuff up!

Lebron's scoring average down drastically! "He was averging 35 points a game, after his 34 point performance he is at 34.99"

Good thing I cashed in my 401(k) and invested in gold!

So 'slip' is now a scary word that signals the end of the world?

I am glad that the Senate is actually acting like the grownups we assumed they are. Whenever someone goes off that the Senate is "undemocratic" and how its unfair each state gets equal representation, I remember things like this - its the Senate who ends up making the deals that the children in the House can't possible come up with.

Though I assume the comprehensive deal comes on Wed night - just before the debt ceiling day.

Then we'll have to see if Cruz or Lee or Paul object and cause enough delay to cause problems. We're apparently past the point where the Senate has time to respond to objections.

If the government is shut down, where is all the spending coming from that is putting us against the debt ceiling? Shouldn't the shut down have delayed the debt ceiling hit?

All asked tongue-in-cheek, of course.

Well, I think if this Gang of 12 can come to a deal - there may be 60 to prevent a Cruz or Lee or Paul from gumming up things.

My understanding is that a single senator can object and force the process back to a normal time frame which would require more time than we have. This could go quickly, but only through unanimous consent. When it comes to that, Ted Cruz will become the most important man in America.

There may be something to that, but we actually passed the debt limit months ago and have used accounting tricks since then. It also isn't certain that Oct. 17 is D-Day. I thought it was like my house closing, "on or about..."

You're so right they always report on 0.2% changes in the market come up with explanations for them. I stand corrected.

Or how about the other 97 who just keep spending the money we don't have? Of course no empire has ever collapsed for economic reasons before, roll out the printing presses otherwise we are all going to die! :rolleyes:

You must miss that there are several channels devoted to covering financial markets, so yes, there are usually several news reports a day commenting on even minute changes in a market's price.

Front page of yahoo? Not usually... but I realize you have to apologize for the Feds like Texas sports so don't know why I bother.

So the Fed put that on the front page of Yahoo? Interesting.

I'm sure that throwing on the brakes to your spending in an uncontrolled and haphazard manner is good for all companies and governments. If we want to use the now tortured metaphor of "spending money we don't have like a regular family", it would be like deciding to just stop paying the mortgage for a few months but continuing to pay for cable and pork-of-the-month club because Mom and Dad can't decide which ham or tv program to give up (or, you know, like selectively attempting to stop "all" discretionary funding like hurricane relief and then while begging for aid when there's a fertilizer explosion in your state).

But that would be silly because stretching a metaphor that far and basing your decisions on it would be impractical because it's no longer representing what you're trying to relate it to and is just a gross oversimplification, right?

SI

Yes I don't think it is quite Alex Jones territory to say that ABC and Yahoo and Fox are government mouthpieces. (Or at least mouthpieces for the two pieces of the monster)

narratives

Thought this was good.

The Last Psychiatrist: How Does The Shutdown Relate To Me?

And I would agree with you SI if that wasn't the explanation every single time that debt limit comes up. This has been going on since at least Clinton and its always the same thing... we will fix it later but for now we just can't do anything about it. Otherwise the economy will crash. Why? The experts say. Why do they know? Because they explained why the 2007 crash after it happened, not before so they must know what will happen. You guys laugh all the time at the goldbugs (rightfully so on the fear mongering) when they claim the economy will collapse if we keep spending. Why then is the fear mongering the other way really any different?

Well, raising the debt ceiling doesn't authorize any more spending. The budget had already been passed, so they knew at the time that they would be spending the money, and what they authorized was going to exceed the debt ceiling. That is one reason why it is different.

I know, despite your "pox on both houses", stance, you do love to get in your Democratic rip (I don't remember when it started but it was probably Clinton!), never mind that since WW2 Democratic Presidents have presided over decreases in debt while Republican Presidents have gone the other way with GWB and Reagan responsible for the two largest percent increases in debt.



But how about that a national debt has been going on since the country was founded


Is structural debt bad: yes. Are there ways to fix it that we're ignoring: of course. Could many agencies stand to get a trim? Yes. Are arbitrary cuts or "across the board" cuts stupid? YES! Because there are downstream effects. And certain services have societal benefits beyond profit motive (just because the park service doesn't necessarily turn a profit doesn't mean it doesn't provide a benefit to the United States).

SI