Re: Had I known, I wouldn't have been so mean to bob

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Perfect; this is exactly what I came here to comment on. If he really does this - says it and then follows through on it in some non-tricky/deep game way, then fuck him, and may he lose in 2012. Fucking worthless centrist asshole, enabling every worst inclination of our current broken system.

And fuck you, blind Obama supporters*, for saying shit like, "He does everything he can, but the Senate holds him back." Fucking worthless, non-leading piece of shit.

* Note that, if you wish, you may exempt yourself from this attack by insisting that you're not blind.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 7:55 PM
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Oh, I see that, earlier today, Mori Dinauer at TAPPED had suggested that Evan Bayh had argued himself out of the Democratic Party by suggesting a spending freeze. Funny!


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 7:57 PM
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If I'd know it was going to be this type of party...


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:00 PM
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Puke.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:02 PM
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Someone please tell me that Jan 25 is like April 1 in Obama's native Kenya Hawai'i.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:02 PM
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"Obama to Nation: 'Ha ha, I really had you going there'"


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:03 PM
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The Senate plan is the plan he wanted. And that's why Coakley got no funding. I think he's done. This outcome should have been more apparent - to me at least - from the time he named his cabinet.


Posted by: text | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:04 PM
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Bridgeplateself was so upset that there was a typo in what came across the RSS feed. This is well worth being upset. Even floating the idea is horrible. (And I say this as an enemy of the people whose funding will not be frozen.)

Didn't they just bring back Plouffe and other strategists? Is this the result?


Posted by: md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:04 PM
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Reminds me of Clinton's pivot in the State of the Union address in 1995, but at least in that case we'd lost more than just one Senate seat.

I'm giving up on caring about national party politics. Local politics and issue activism it is.


Posted by: Criminally Bulgur | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:06 PM
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Seriously, why does he think this will work? Or will it work? Where's my cheese?


Posted by: text | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:07 PM
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I'm giving up on caring about national party politics. Local politics and issue activismsleeping pills and kool-aid it is.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:08 PM
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Reminds me of Clinton's pivot in the State of the Union address in 1995, but at least in that case we'd lost more than just one Senate seat.

Clinton's problem was that he was always reacting to events. Obama's learned that lesson and is getting out in front.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:08 PM
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Or is it OJ?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:08 PM
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And that's why Coakley got no funding.

Coakley had plenty of funding. Obama and his jackasstastic complicity with Republican "burn down the country and bail out the country clubs" framing had nothing to do with her decision to go on vacation for a month.

That said, this is appalling. Worse than the run-up to Iraq, I think, because there I think the cowardice and stabbing liberals in the back at least ostensibly made sense as a cowardly, backstabbing response by cowardly, backstabbing people. This is all that plus counterproductive. Buffoons. Petty, cruel buffoons.


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:09 PM
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Obama's learned that lesson and is getting out in front.

Be the problem you want to fix in the world!


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:10 PM
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On the other hand, maybe 2011 and 2012 will bring us closer to solving America's pressing V-CHIP and school uniform problems.


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:13 PM
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14 is right. Seriously, what happened to the guy who said that Democrats had better policies and that he welcomed an argument over substance with the opposition? This is just amazingly stupid as politics and even worse as policy. So stupid I'm still not quite ready to believe it's true.


Posted by: ari | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:13 PM
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A Republican is just a Democrat who's been mugged elected.


Posted by: A White Bear | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:15 PM
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From the TPM article:

The officials said the process is "healthy," and framed it as similar to how families make decisions about where they put their household dollars.

I have no words. Seriously, I am, like, sputtering. Physically.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:15 PM
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I didn't really miss the politics of triangulation.


Posted by: ari | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:17 PM
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7:The Senate plan is the plan he wanted. And that's why Coakley got no funding.

I have really restrained myself from saying this.

Coakley was so nonchalant about her campaign. On orders. She will be well rewarded.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:17 PM
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"Let's put all of our household dollars into bazookas and X-10 systems, darling!"


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:18 PM
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GODDAMNIT.


Posted by: Gabardine Bathyscaphe | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:18 PM
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She will be well rewarded.

Do you think she'll be given a lair of her own?


Posted by: ari | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:22 PM
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It just keeps getting worse, doesn't it? When will it stop getting worse?


Posted by: Bave Dee | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:22 PM
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I probably should have restrained myself from 21.

My default assumption is that people like Obama and Rahm aren't stupid or incompetent.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:22 PM
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My default assumption is that people like Obama and Rahm aren't stupid or incompetent.

Me too! But this assumption has, in the past, led us to vastly different conclusions! Not any more! We are all Bob McManus now! (rfts, I borrowed some of your exclamation points. I hope that's okay!)


Posted by: ari | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:25 PM
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It sounds like he's listening too closely to the dude (Harvard prof, Regan adviser, no clue on the name) on the Lehrer News Hour tonight who said that what's really holding the economy back is a deep worry about the federal deficit.


Posted by: Parenthetical | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:25 PM
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I'm still holding out for the State of the Union. I understand Obama is going to announce a brilliant new plan to balance the budget by cutting capital gains taxes.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:26 PM
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(rfts, I borrowed some of your exclamation points. I hope that's okay!)

You bet! I've got plenty!


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:26 PM
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I've got it! Obama's going to reinvent government! It's a brilliant idea that's never been tried before, at least not in such detail or with such care.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:26 PM
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My default assumption is that people like Obama and Rahm aren't stupid or incompetent.

Yes. Similarly, questions like "Why are congressional Democrats so incompetent that they can't pass x, y, or z, while the Republicans had their shit together enough to pass a, b, and c?" contain a whopper of an unexamined assumption.


Posted by: Bave Dee | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:26 PM
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My default assumption is that people like Obama and Rahm aren't stupid or incompetent.

I'm beginning to suspect that Obama might actually be incompetent. Not as incompetent as the last guy, but still...


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:27 PM
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24 - My favorite Woolf essay.


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:30 PM
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From the TPM article:

"We do need to reflect the fact that we remain at war," the official said, noting the president was able to win several battles on cutting Pentagon spending.

But didn't the defense budget go up overall anyway?


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:32 PM
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I don't have the stomach for real news. Hey look, it's Gary Coleman!

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=9454836

Santaquin police arrested Coleman on a domestic violence assault-related charge, according to jail documents. As of Monday morning, Coleman's $1,725 bail had not yet been posted. In 2008, a man claimed Coleman tried to run over him in a parking lot when he tried to take a picture with the child star.

Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:34 PM
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I think the answer is to recast all domestic priorities as defense-related. More money for schools? We're training the next generation of warriors! Health insurances subsidies? We're keeping people well enough to be drafted!


Posted by: Otto von Bisquick | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:36 PM
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Obama didn't cut defense spending; he raised it and reallocated it.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:36 PM
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What's Gary Coleman doing in Santaquin?


Posted by: Bave Dee | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:51 PM
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Goddamn, he lives there. Which doesn't really answer my question.


Posted by: Bave Dee | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:54 PM
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The media's trying to hold up this whole one party/two faction system by telling you that Barack Obama got this mandate with fifty-three percent of the vote and you know that just doesn't take into account the whole population of the country. They say that sixty-one point seven percent, in the media, they say that sixty-one point seven percent of the eligible populations participated in the o-eight election, but I think the figure's a hell of a lot lower than that. You gotta consider prisoners -- we got more people incarcerated in this country than any other country in Western history, noncitizens, the underaged, the overaged, people too old to get to the polls, people out in rural areas, people who don't have addresses. I mean, to be conservative, the figure's more like forty-two percent. So Obama got fifty-three percent of forty-two percent, what's that, twenty-two percent? Maybe twenty-two percent of the people in this country support him. That's nothing! That's nothing, that's not a mandate. I mean, the people in Nazi Germany...Nazi Germany in nineteen thirty-two, the Nazis had maybe thirty-four, thirty-eight percent, and someone like Brown, who's already out of there, over in England, that guy's got maybe thirty-five, forty-three percent of the vote, so ... twenty-two percent is nothing. I mean, it just seems that one day it's going to dawn on everybody that this large, nonvoting majority has been winning every election for the past three decades, and the people that win these elections are going to be too ashamed, or better yet, too afraid to even take power at all.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:54 PM
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33

I'm beginning to suspect that Obama might actually be incompetent. Not as incompetent as the last guy, but still...

A disturbing possibility. Of course Obama was good at running for President but then so was Bush. Perhaps electing a guy with no executive experience wasn't such a great idea.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:54 PM
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I mean, why choose Santaquin over Payson, for example?


Posted by: Bave Dee | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:55 PM
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Anyway, just the other day while I was finishing up a run I was thinking, "Remember back during the election when McCain promised a freeze on discretionary spending? Good thing he didn't win."


Posted by: Otto von Bisquick | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 8:55 PM
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I mean, why choose Santaquin over Payson, for example?

I wish he'd move to Salt Lake. Him and his wife have had number of run ins with the police down there. I bet those calls are fun as hell.

Here's some more background and a pic of the not so happy couple.

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/07/02/2009-07-02_actor_gary_colemans_wife_shannon_price_arrested_for_domestic_violence.html


Posted by: gswift | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:00 PM
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The media's trying to hold up this whole one party/two faction system by telling you that Barack Obama got this mandate with fifty-three percent of the vote and you know that just doesn't take into account the whole population of the country.[. . ]

You know, that's what I hate: when you start talking like this, like you just pull in these things from the shit you read, and you haven't thought it out for yourself, no bearing on the world around us, and totally unoriginal.


Posted by: Criminally Bulgur | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:00 PM
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Holy fucking shit. Maybe I should have supported Edwards after all.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:01 PM
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But it would signal to voters, Wall Street and other nations that Mr. Obama is willing to make some tough decisions at a time when the deficit and the national debt, in the view of some economists, have reached levels that undermine the nation's long-term prosperity.

NYT. Structural adjustment: it's not just for the Third World anymore.


Posted by: Bave Dee | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:01 PM
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I mean, why choose Santaquin over Payson, for example?

Well, you know, why choose Angelina over Jen? I guess the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing, or something like that. (And btw, and to continue with the bread and circuses theme, since the political news is so appallingly depressing, is it true that Brangelina are finally calling it quits?).

Re: the quote in 19...but no, I'd better not say anything until I've cooled down a bit.


Posted by: Mary Catherine | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:02 PM
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But Mary Catherine, Payson has a bowling alley, band concerts in the gazebo on Sunday evenings, the Onion Days Parade, the Salmon Supper (I think that's still going, anyway). Santaquin has, um, a truck stop.


Posted by: Bave Dee | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:05 PM
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48: Heh. I just e-mailed that paragraph, with very much the same comment, to an old friend. Wait, maybe "heh" isn't appropriate right now. Ah, gallows humor...


Posted by: ari | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:08 PM
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46: Remember, terrorism is the surgical strike capability of the oppressed.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:08 PM
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And sporks are the ice-picks of outer space.


Posted by: ari | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:09 PM
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53: We've been on the moon since the fifties.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:11 PM
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We can take some solace in the knowledge that whitey will never again be on the moon.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:13 PM
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I'm giving up on caring about national party politics. Local politics and issue activism Wine, women, and song it is.

Which is ... yeah ... about where I was in 1997. 'Twas a good year, actually, excepting my near-death experience.


Posted by: Populuxe | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:19 PM
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This is bullshit. If he's lost me he's lost everyone, and so he has.


Posted by: lurker 265 | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:20 PM
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I think the trick is that discretionary spending will likely grow by 20 percent from 2008 to 2010, so a freeze just brings things back down to its prior growth path.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:21 PM
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Why does the article report 10-year projected savings on a 3-year projected freeze?


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:23 PM
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Note Yglesias's cool under fire: very few spelling/grammar errors here. The guy is a warrior, I tell you.


Posted by: ari | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:28 PM
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60: You know the other thread, where you initially didn't believe the rumor that bob posted? Did you click on the link he posted there?


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:31 PM
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The Conrad/Gregg deficit commission would be the real game changer. Senate vote tomorrow.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:31 PM
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61: His initial link was to Yglesias's comment section, right? Of course I didn't read that swill.


Posted by: ari | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:35 PM
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63: Yes. The comment section on that very post.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:36 PM
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64: And?


Posted by: ari | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:39 PM
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I just thought you were posting the link in 60 as if it were new and that it was ironic in the context of this post that it was basically the link bob posted that started the whole thing on the other thread.

Also, I've really come to hate my classes and am always looking for ways to waste time.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:42 PM
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It was specifically a link to the following comment:

"Obamareagan adopted Republican talking points and framing durig the campaign. Harry and Louise p 2.

Stealth Friedmanite from University of Chicago. How long have Republicans been training the mole?"

Now you know the whole story, ari.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:44 PM
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I pretty much always read the post first when people link to comments on blogs. Then I often don't read the comments.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:47 PM
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With all this talk about freezes, y'all didn't notice the other big headline of the day. Obama is replacing Geithner with Zombie Andrew Mellon. Pundits and centrist Senators are applauding the move, saying it's about time this administration had some BRAAAINZZZ.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:52 PM
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66: Ah, no, that wasn't it. I'm not that clever. I hadn't read Yglesias's post until just before I commented. And I was struck by the hilarity of him putting up something with almost no typos. It just seemed weird to me, emblematic of a world turned upside down.


Posted by: ari | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:55 PM
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Now you know the whole story, ari.

Only Bob knows the whole story, ned.


Posted by: ari | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 9:56 PM
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To tie the two strains of this comment thread together: I really do think of McManus as a character from Slacker.


Posted by: Criminally Bulgur | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 10:01 PM
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Harvard prof, Regan adviser, no clue on the name) on the Lehrer News Hour

Martin Feldstein it appears.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 10:02 PM
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Greenspan, Milty's disciple on Earth, has the parchment with Obama's signature in blood. The contract was drawn up immediately following the loss to Bobby Rush.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 10:04 PM
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72: What, not the Old Anarchist, surely?

I think of all of you as grown-up versions of Slacker characters. Except for Neb and Teo.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 10:16 PM
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75: Not a specific character. Just someone who could be in the movie: sitting at the cafe with his dogs, bearded and wearing jorts, showing all the student types who come in the comments he read and linked to on the internet that day, etc.


Posted by: Criminally Bulgur | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 10:21 PM
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Pulled up Slackers from On Demand.

Whatever happened to Devon Sawa?


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 10:35 PM
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I heard that Obama's going to bomb Cambodia tomorrow.


Posted by: Natilo Paennim | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 10:50 PM
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Y'all are just alarmists. By doing this I'm sure Obama has locked in a eleventy-zillion Senate Republican votes on other progressive initiatives. Or something other cunning plan. It's all good! Idaho might be in play after we see the results of this.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 11:27 PM
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Halfway thru the movie the only one I can relate to is Ethan. I wish I had had his social skills.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 11:29 PM
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26: I probably should have restrained myself from 21.

No bob, you were clearly under enormous pressure to defend your unique piece of the commentosphere in the face of the collective freak-out, and you came through like a trooper.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 11:32 PM
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Idaho might be in play after we see the results of this.

Idahens for Obama! (7 members strong)


Posted by: ari | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 11:46 PM
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I've been wondering if I should revise my reaction to the rumor that the Obama admin wanted 70+ votes on the stimulus and now think that the story was accurate.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 11:49 PM
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83 is the stuff from which historiographical debates are forged. God, I wish I was kidding.


Posted by: ari | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 11:51 PM
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I swear, the bar Obama had to clear for me was *so ridiculously low*, and he still isn't even coming close. I'm now looking for administration trial balloons about renewing Bush's tax cuts because it would be imprudent to raise taxes in a recession.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 01-25-10 11:58 PM
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||

Oops!

Different slackers? I bet y'all meant the Linklater slackers rather than the Sawa-Jason Segal-Jason Schwartzman Slackers. Boy is my face red.

Haven't seem the Linklater either.

Schwartzman was a fucking riot.

|>


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 12:02 AM
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Linklater is Slacker.

Sawa-Jason Segal-Jason Schwartzman is Slackers.

I have seen neither.


Posted by: Otto von Bisquick | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 12:07 AM
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Martin Feldstein it appears.

Yep. Don't know why I'm so bad at recalling names I hear rather than read.


Posted by: Parenthetical | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 12:13 AM
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Richard Estes on the "Structural adjustment."

"And my friends argued that I was too cynical when I said that the White House wants to get rid of the Democratic majority in Congress so that it cut Medicare and Social Security." ...RE

Historical Obama. It's all just ego. Do something big. And much bigger than you think.

Whatever insight I might have of people like Estes, and Newberry, and Naomi Klein. Or not.

I really went to Estes blog to find his wonderful line about the "appropriation of the politics of identity" by Obama.

When I read it, my reaction was not only about race or gender or preference, but much more interestingly about Obama's appropriation of the identity of liberals/progressives.

This is why the Health Care Reform debate is so hard for those of us who oppose the Senate Bill. That a Democrat would deliberately use the forms and language of Universal Health Care to transfer money from the middle-class to the rich is an profound attack on the progressive identity.

A brilliant and destructive man is Obama.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 12:32 AM
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OT: If anyone here knows someone who's involved in the world of highbrow comics/graphic novels and also a history nerd, please send me an e-mail at my work address. Thanks.


Posted by: ari | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 12:34 AM
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Bah.

Estes Link


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 12:34 AM
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So, what's the most pointless historiographical debate in history?


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 12:37 AM
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I guess you historians are too smart to take the bait.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 1:07 AM
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This is fucking funny: Greenspan, Milty's disciple on Earth, has the parchment with Obama's signature in blood. The contract was drawn up immediately following the loss to Bobby Rush.

I think that on one hand this is meaningless theater -- 2011 is far enough away that no one will remember if the government blows by the limits of any spending freeze. On the other hand, it shows that Obama is going to tack right, which means its going to be a long 3 or 7 years.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 1:44 AM
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Relax a little.

http://www.openleft.com/diary/17113/it-is-unlikely-that-spending-will-actually-be-frozen-or-cut

Don't relax completely though. This will certainly constrain their options, and isn't even politically savvy.


Posted by: David Weman | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 1:55 AM
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90 : Knows, as in knows personally or knows the name of?


Posted by: David | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 1:56 AM
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Inolved in the world meaning cartoonist or critic?


Posted by: David | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 1:57 AM
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I'm going to assume that bob is right, now, and that the secret agenda is to cut entitlements.

You know, as a political party the Republicans are more deserving of a role in government than the Democrats are. The Republicans understand that you stand for an agenda, when you get elected you try to put parts of the agenda into practice, and when you get voted out you wait until you get another turn to push your agenda forward. The Democrats model seems to be that if you manage to hold office for 30 years, you get to vote "Aye" for maybe 2% of the ideas you think are good ones.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 2:29 AM
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2011 is far enough away that no one will remember if the government blows by the limits of any spending freeze

What about my question in the other thread - can you still have health care reform coming in 2013 if you have a freeze on spending? The hypothetical freeze might not happen in 2013, but couldn't it exist long enough in 2010 to kill health care?

(I'll note, additionally, that accurate or not, this leak will probably suck the air out of all the health care agitation, making it easier for the Senate bill to die.)


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 2:39 AM
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99.2: I don't see how. They vote on the budget every year.

99.3: This is probably true.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 2:50 AM
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100.1: I don't mean exist as voted in and approved. I mean exist as a proposal in the air, with people saying that we can't fight for the freeze if we're fighting for health care too.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 3:16 AM
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Oh, that I can believe. If Obama doesn't call for passing HCR in the State of the Union, I expect that it will be dead.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 3:18 AM
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I can't believe I'm the first person to say this.

Christ, what an asshole.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 5:49 AM
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And Bob? I'm not promising to agree with you about everything from here on out, but I'm at least going to worry about it when I find myself thinking you're wrong.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 5:56 AM
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99.2:It was always about 20 blue dogs and 10 progressives (or that proportion) they needed in the House for the Senate Bill, and I can't see the freeze doing anything but driving the blue dogs further away from Obama. In the purple districts of the blue dogs, HCR is perceived as a budget buster. Blues won't stick their neck out.

The progressives were already enraged at Obama and the Senate.

Now every project, piece of pork, that a Congressperson wants, or needs for re-election, will be under scrutiny and threat.

It feels a little like Obama is running against waste and abuse in Congressional Spending...in a Midterm Year? With a Congress of his own Party?

As far as I can remember, conference negotiations were going along decently, with Obama on the Hill meeting with the unions for example, until MA.

The sudden and radical flip after MA is one piece of evidence I use to believe that Congress viewed MA a little differently than the rest of us. At the very least, they no longer view Obama as at all helpful to their re-election.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 6:25 AM
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And I am really flattered by all the praise, but the fact is that a natural pessimism, cynicism, and skepticism gains an advantage at certain times and conditions.

For example, I really doubt that the Mavericks will win the NBA Championship this year. Odds are overwhelmingly on favor of me being right.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 6:31 AM
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I hate feeling so dismal about the world.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 6:45 AM
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I feel prompted to say McManus is an idiot and a lunatic, as also quite odious.


Posted by: David Weman | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 6:48 AM
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a robust freaking-out

You're going to have to give me some time. I still have politics fatigue and can't even stand to watch a whole episode of The Daily Show. The closest I can get to a freak-out is catatonia.


Posted by: Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 6:53 AM
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Maybe Obama really is the Manchurian candidate dedicated to ensuring that the Party for the Advancement of Ignorance, Torture, and the Concentration of Wealth is brought back to power in the form of POTUS Sarah Palin and VPOTUS Chuck Norris.

Or not, but who can tell?


Posted by: Ugh | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 7:13 AM
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Don't we go through this roughly every six months or so? I can't find the link, but I know I've said bob was right more than once.


Posted by: Cyrus | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 7:16 AM
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but I know I've said bob was right more than once.

That's because bob usually is right in terms of his appraisal of reality. It's when he suggests what to do about it the he sometimes comes unstuck from reality.


Posted by: OFE | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 7:24 AM
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So you all are going to be anarchists now, right? Just let me know and I'll invite you to the next vegan potluck.

I must say that the Obama administration has been far, far worse than I believed possible.

This whole thing really does confirm all my most depressing beliefs about government--that politicians really have more in common with other politicians than with their constituents, no matter their party; that when ordinary people are disorganized and weak, no ideology will keep the state from trampling them; that liberalism at bottom is mostly a way of buying off the mob; etc. I had hoped to be wrong.


Posted by: Frowner | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 8:04 AM
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So you all are going to be anarchists now, right? Just let me know and I'll invite you to the next vegan potluck.

I'm thinking about it.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 8:10 AM
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This freeze is not a big deal substantively. It's totally tin-eared in terms of the base impact, though.

I'm now looking for administration trial balloons about renewing Bush's tax cuts because it would be imprudent to raise taxes in a recession.

Well, you know he promised in the campaign to make them permanent for everyone under $250,000. But they already have floated the idea of extending all the Bush tax cuts (including those for the wealthy) for one additional year (to the close of 2011) because of the recession.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 10:30 AM
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90: I might know a guy. I'm not seeing any link to your work email, though.


Posted by: briefly visible | Link to this comment | 01-26-10 11:33 AM
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