Woohoo! Go, Scott Brown.

[Lemur]

I should hope there is a price to be paid for the GOP itself, and not just for the functioning of democracy in America.

No evidence of price-paying thus far, or as one blogger put it:

The problem here is that the Republican strategy of holding out for total surrender is working just fine. They had an interesting theory that if you refuse to cooperate with efforts to make the country better, things won’t get better and the out-of-power party will benefit. The theory appears to be true.

[aimlesswanderer]

Yeah, the Republicans seem to be opposing everything just because they can, and because the thoughtful types on Fox are causing their supporters to froth at the mouth. And where were all these disaffected small government types when Bush was racking up a massive deficit (hello multiple trillion dollar tax cuts to the rich) and expanding the government hugely? They were probably congratulating themselves on their tax cuts, and not noticing that it blew an enormous hole in the budget. So now they're suddenly all hot and bothered?

[Xiahou]

No evidence of price-paying thus far, or as one blogger put it:

The problem here is that the Republican strategy of holding out for total surrender is working just fine. They had an interesting theory that if you refuse to cooperate with efforts to make the country better, things won’t get better and the out-of-power party will benefit. The theory appears to be true.

It's comical to hear all the 'blame the GOP obstructionists' talk when until too recently the Democrats had unstoppable majorities in both houses. The Democrats had total control over Congress and the White House and still failed to accomplish anything. Why? Because of the Republicans.

Under Bush, the GOP never had a 60 seat majority in the senate and the Democrats still howled about one party rule and how they were powerless to oppose the GOP majority. How is it that the Democrats had 60 seats and still managed to be so feckless? I guess Bush was just more bipartisan than Obama...

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

And where were all these disaffected small government types when Bush was racking up a massive deficit (hello multiple trillion dollar tax cuts to the rich) and expanding the government hugely?

Not only was there similar opposition, but the opposition climbed the more Bush slid into deficit and debt. Is it any surprise that, now that Obama added so much extra debt and created an even larger deficit, that they are so much angrier?

[drone]

Under Bush, the GOP never had a 60 seat majority in the senate and the Democrats still howled about one party rule and how they were powerless to oppose the GOP majority. How is it that the Democrats had 60 seats and still managed to be so feckless? I guess Bush was just more bipartisan than Obama...

I've been pondering if the Democratic congressional leadership was (and remains) incompetent, or complicit in allowing the abuses of the Bush years. I'm not sure Occam's razor applies.

[Major Robert Dump]

BeeGees

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XWYefe9EzI

[aimlesswanderer]

Not only was there similar opposition, but the opposition climbed the more Bush slid into deficit and debt. Is it any surprise that, now that Obama added so much extra debt and created an even larger deficit, that they are so much angrier?

But the budget was crap and getting worse the longer bush was in charge, and so when Obama took office it was already in terrible shape. If there was no stimulus the US economy would have been even crappier, and if there were no bailouts there would be no economy, no financial system and probably a global depression. It isn't Obama's fault that the budget he inherited was in huge deficit, that was his predecessors who caused that.

[KukriKhan]

BeeGees

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XWYefe9EzI

I'll see your Aussie Massachusetts, and Raise you a Dirty Water; Boston You're My Home. :) (Funny those guys are still doing gigs, 40 years later.

-edit-
to topic: GOP'ers need to be careful they don't convince themselves of a "message from the people" that isn't there.

[Subotan]

Not only was there similar opposition, but the opposition climbed the more Bush slid into deficit and debt.

http://incredimazing.com/static/medi...al20090917.jpg

[Skullheadhq]

http://incredimazing.com/static/medi...al20090917.jpg

Nice one!
Also, would you let illegals just rot to death and deny them healthcare, it looks inhumane in my eyes.

[Aemilius Paulus]

Nice one!
Also, would you let illegals just rot to death and deny them healthcare, it looks inhumane in my eyes.

Actually, even as a leftie, I would not agree with your point. The last thing US needs is providing for illegals. The fact they do not pay taxes is bad enough, and the illegals are almost never turned down in the ER (Emergency Room) because that is illegal. And the anchor babies, a concept which is widely and blatantly abused by illegals...

So now you tell me they should get healthcare as well? What happened to the fact they are breaking the law by staying in US, and that they can go back anytime they want to Mexico (or whichever Central American/Caribbean state they belong to). I mean, your idea is noble and splendid, sure, but it is not sustainable. A healthcare system for US citizens only would necessitate a sharp tax increase, but providing for illegals as well would push taxes up and possibly over the levels of European welfare states - something most Americans loathe, or at least would rather not have.

Not to mention, legal immigrants like me do not/will not receive free healthcare - why should illegals, of all the people, receive it? Despite the fact that I would love to receive free healthcare myself, I do not think US should provide for legal immigrants either. If US does it though, then it could face reverse medical tourism...

[Sasaki Kojiro]

It's comical to hear all the 'blame the GOP obstructionists' talk when until too recently the Democrats had unstoppable majorities in both houses. The Democrats had total control over Congress and the White House and still failed to accomplish anything. Why? Because of the Republicans.

Under Bush, the GOP never had a 60 seat majority in the senate and the Democrats still howled about one party rule and how they were powerless to oppose the GOP majority. How is it that the Democrats had 60 seats and still managed to be so feckless? I guess Bush was just more bipartisan than Obama...

If the democrats haven't done anything, I guess that conservatives who want to keep the status quo should be cheering them on.

[Skullheadhq]

Not to mention, legal immigrants like me do not/will not receive free healthcare.

Even if they pay taxes, just like all other americans?

[Aemilius Paulus]

Even if they pay taxes, just like all other americans?

Well, for example, my family pays all the taxes any equivalent American would pay, owns significant property in US, but suppose if our incomes dropped to the level where an American would receive Medicaid, we would not (even if we continued paying the taxes, which an American of that level of poverty barely does - or does not pay at all, considering the tax returns). Also, I am not eligible for any public-university scholarships/public scholarship grants.

So, if the new healthcare plan is unveiled, it is unlikely that my family will be covered. American citizenship is supposed to grant privileges unavailable to others, and it does. Otherwise, how do you distinguish an American from an immigrant? Residing and working in US is a privilege, not a right. The privilege entails certain costs, certain restrictions. And I am lucky enough already.

[Skullheadhq]

I heard from a friend ( I dont think it's true, because it's so weird) that you get a scholarship in America just because you're good in a sport, can anybody confirm this?

[rvg]

I heard from a friend ( I dont think it's true, because it's so weird) that you get a scholarship in America just because you're good in a sport, can anybody confirm this?

Sure can. But you gotta be good.

[Skullheadhq]

REALLY?! That's just unbelievable, and poor ol' taxpaying AP can not and a retarded sporter can get it.
Mind=blown

[Vladimir]

REALLY?! That's just unbelievable, and poor ol' taxpaying AP can not and a retarded sporter can get it.
Mind=blown

Not at all. If you are that good at a sport you'll bring in far more money than tuition and fees. It's all about the money. Think about it: How much money is involved in college sports? Whether that is right or wrong is another subject.

[Crazed Rabbit]

It's the colleges who pay for an athlete's scholarship - and the athletes have to be good. The cost is made up by people paying to see the college football team play.

Of course, you could easily make an argument that such massive spending by colleges on sports is wasteful and shouldn't be the goal of educational institutes.

And there's lots of scholarships for smart people as well.

Also, would you let illegals just rot to death and deny them healthcare, it looks inhumane in my eyes.

No, it's denying criminals free health insurance paid for by American taxpayers.

From Peggy Noonan:

Speaking broadly: In the 2006 and 2008 elections, and at some point during the past decade, the ancestral war between Democrats and the Republicans began to take on a new look. If you were a normal human sitting at home having a beer and watching national politics peripherally, as normal people do until they focus on an election, chances are pretty good you came to see the two major parties not as the Dems versus the Reps, or the blue versus the bed, but as the Nuts versus the Creeps. The Nuts were for high spending and taxing and the expansion of government no matter what. The Creeps were hypocrites who talked one thing and did another, who went along on the spending spree while lecturing on fiscal solvency.

In 2008, the voters went for Mr. Obama thinking he was not a Nut but a cool and sober moderate of the center-left sort. In 2009 and 2010, they looked at his general governing attitudes as reflected in his preoccupations—health care, cap and trade—and their hidden, potential and obvious costs, and thought, "Uh-oh, he's a Nut!"

Which meant they were left with the Creeps.

But the Republican candidates in Virginia and New Jersey, and now Scott Brown in Massachusetts, did something amazing. They played the part of the Creep very badly! They put themselves forward as serious about spending, as independent, not narrowly partisan. Mr. Brown rarely mentioned he was a Republican, and didn't even mention the party in his victory speech. Importantly, their concerns were on the same page as the voters'. They focused on the relationship between spending and taxing, worried about debt and deficits, were moderate in their approach to social issues. They didn't have wedge issues, they had issues.
...
For Mr. Brown now, everything depends on execution. He made the Olympics. Now he has to do the swan dive, with a billion people watching. And then he has to do it again.

He needs to serve the country the way he campaigned for votes—earnest, open, not beholden to interest or party. And he needs to avoid the Descent of the Congressional Vampires, who'll attempt to claim his victory as their own and suck from his neck until he's a pale and lifeless husk. Not to understate. But they'll want him fund-raising and speaking all over the country, not knowing or perhaps caring that the best work he can do for his party is succeeding in the eyes of his constituents, who couldn't care less about the fortunes of the GOP. He needs to avoid the vampires in the nicest possible way. Maybe he should carry a little cross deep inside his breast pocket so they retreat without knowing why: "I tried to get him to Boca for the donor retreat but some invisible force stopped me! I ran backwards and slipped on the shiny marble floor! Mah hip is out! "

CR

[Beskar]

Not at all. If you are that good at a sport you'll bring in far more money than tuition and fees. It's all about the money. Think about it: How much money is involved in college sports? Whether that is right or wrong is another subject.

Zero money in University sports here.

[rvg]

Zero money in University sports here.

God Bless America.

[Louis VI the Fat]

God bless America's knack for attracting talent of whatever kind. [/jealous, can't even get a few hardworking Polish plumbers to be allowed entry over here, never mind real talent. ]



More importantly, the GOP ought to be brought before justice for treason and sedition.



The amusement and glee many prominent conservatives displayed at the US's loss of the 2016 Olympics to Brazil may have seemed like a harmless bit of partisan bickering, but underlying that attitude is a dangerous attempt to subvert US foreign policy at a critical time.

It is a generally accepted -- though sometimes broken -- rule of politics that competing parties criticize each other at home, not abroad. But that rule now appears to be ignored more often than it is observed, as Republican politicians take to the world's stages to criticize President Barack Obama's policies on everything from climate change to the coup in Honduras to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

An interesting pattern has been emerging in the Republican Party's handling of foreign policy: Individual GOP officials are now making a regular point of not only formulating an alternative foreign policy, to be presented to the American people and debated in Congress -- they're acting on it too, and undermining the official White House policies at multiple turns:


• Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is visiting Honduras in order to support the recent military coup against a leftist president, which has been opposed by the Obama administration and all the surrounding countries in the region. (Late Update: DeMint's office says he is not taking sides during his visit to the current Honduran leadership, denying the New York Times reports that this was his

intention.)


• Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) will be going to the upcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen, bringing a "Truth Squad" to tell foreign officials there that the American government will not take any action: "Now, I want to make sure that those attending the Copenhagen conference know what is really happening in the United States Senate."

• House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) traveled to Israel, where he spoke out against President Obama's opposition to expanded settlements. He also defended Israel on the eviction of two Arab families from a house in east Jerusalem, which had been criticized by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

• Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) boasted in June that he told Chinese officials not to trust America's budget numbers. "One of the messages I had -- because we need to build trust and confidence in our number one creditor," said Kirk, "is that the budget numbers that the US government had put forward should not be believed." Since then, he has declared his candidacy for U.S. Senate.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2...-diplomacy.php

Unheard of in the functioning democratic world. Opposition does not mean resistance.

Last year I thought it was a commonly shared sentiment that partisan extremism undermines the functioning of US politics, and that the voters had had enough of this obstructionist nonsense.

Apparantly, not.

[Lemur]

But that rule now appears to be ignored more often than it is observed, as Republican politicians take to the world's stages to criticize President Barack Obama's policies on everything from climate change to the coup in Honduras to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

I think you missed a biggie, Senators McCain and Lieberman opposing our President's Middle East policy in a public interview while on foreign soil. Quite ugly. They basically said, "The President can say what he likes, but we will prevent him from altering policy."

To me this is roughly equivalent to having two top-shelf Dem Senators declaring that they would prevent a Republican president from applying any pressure to Chávez while they tour Venezuela. But then, I guess this falls into the "Israel can do no wrong" thing that I have never understood.

[Louis VI the Fat]

How about the GOP tries to work out means to reduce the deficit that both parties can agree to, in an effort to form a sustainable solution that helps reduce actual debt for the actual American taxpayer?

WASHINGTON — Top Republicans on Wednesday were hostile toward President Obama’s plan to create a bipartisan commission on cutting projected deficits, raising doubts about the prospects of a main piece of his budget strategy.



Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader in the Senate, was evasive when pressed by reporters at the Capitol. “I’m not going to decide today what we’re going to do in the future,” he said. But the House Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, seemed to suggest that Republicans might not take their allotted seats on a commission.


“This sounds like political cover for Washington Democrats who are starting to realize that their out-of-control spending is scaring the hell out of the American people,” Mr. Boehner said of the tentative deal between the White House and Congressional Democratic leaders on Tuesday night.
Under that plan, Mr. Obama would establish by executive order an 18-member bipartisan panel to propose how to balance future tax revenue and entitlement program benefits. The group’s recommendations would be due by Dec. 1 — after the November elections. Then Congressional leaders would put the package to a vote.


Democrats expected that Mr. McConnell and Mr. Boehner would not be supportive given their party’s general opposition to raising taxes and to compromising with Mr. Obama. But Democrats figured that ultimately Republicans would be hard pressed to reject the president’s overture to help reduce the debt, since most of it results from tax and spending policies enacted in recent years, when Republicans controlled the White House and Congress.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/us...l?ref=politics

The Republicans won't even help clean up their own mess. The strategy is to obstruct, fuel ire and hatred, and count firmly on the US electorate to have a short memory.


Edit:

I think you missed a biggie, Senators McCain and Lieberman opposing our President's Middle East policy in a public interview while on foreign soil.

There are so many acts of Republican sedition it is hard to keep track.

When will the first troops die because of this? America's enemies are having a ball.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

If the democrats haven't done anything, I guess that conservatives who want to keep the status quo should be cheering them on.

Conservatives don't want to keep the status quo, we just don't want that sort of "change."

[Beskar]

Conservatives don't want to keep the status quo, we just don't want that sort of "change."

Correct, they want regression.

That is why they don't want status quo or progression, Sasaki.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Correct, they want regression.

Wrong.

[Beskar]

Wrong.

No it isn't, the oxymoronical "right" who are against progress, want to regress to states such as having a heirarchical monarchy.

I believe even you share this opinion, EMFM, with your want of a Kaiser.

So how is this wrong?

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

So how is this wrong?

Because our opinions aren't "regressive", they're just different. The left also wants things that have been tried before in other places, that doesn't make them "regressive" either. I'd remind you that no culture or state has ever tried the system that I have theorized about before.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I think you missed a biggie, Senators McCain and Lieberman opposing our President's Middle East policy in a public interview while on foreign soil. Quite ugly. They basically said, "The President can say what he likes, but we will prevent him from altering policy."

To me this is roughly equivalent to having two top-shelf Dem Senators declaring that they would prevent a Republican president from applying any pressure to Chávez while they tour Venezuela. But then, I guess this falls into the "Israel can do no wrong" thing that I have never understood.

They opposed the Middle East Envoy's statements - something that wasn't repeated or supported publicly by Obama. And the situation with Israel is quite different from Venezuela.

I find the whole idea that Republicans are bringing about a new era of obstruction quite exaggerated. Or maybe Bush was simply a much more effective leader. And didn't Pelosi do a tour of the Mid-east when Bush was president?

No it isn't, the oxymoronical "right" who are against progress, want to regress to states such as having a heirarchical monarchy.

Care to actually try to discuss things instead of failed attempts at one-liners in all the threads you post in?

CR