Re: Given that we have a bike thread, we need to discuss why Obama can't just executive order in a debt ceiling raise.

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This is really the most likely positive outcome. I can imagine Obama growing a backbone more easily than I can imagine Boehner being reasonable.

Andrew Leonard at Salon said this wouldn't be a solution, because the markets will still lose faith in the US if it takes a questionable constitutional move just to pay our bills when there is no real emergency.

I don't think this is right, though. I think investors, like everyone else, are just looking for an excuse to make the problem go away.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 12:39 PM
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I don't think we can attribute this to Obama's spinelessness. Seems like he could have gotten a clean bill - and may yet do so - if that's what he actually wanted.

But I share the curiosity on the various underhanded methods the president might use to avert default. After all, in our new USA, if the president does it, that means it's legal.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 12:44 PM
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Because all of this is political theater? Because he believes in austerity programs during crushing hard times? Because while you're playing checkers he's playing that game Chewie played with Luke on the Millennium Falcon right before they learned that Alderon had been destroyed? Because he's worried about being impeached? Because he thinks that partisanship is a bigger threat to the Republic than the Republicans are? Because because of the wonderful things he does?

Also, I think maybe people should stop talking about the markets as though they're rational and coldly calculating: "The markets will do this or that based on these and those sets of inputs." Maybe. Maybe the markets are driven by people who know that they can defuse this particular ticking time bomb whenever they want (and idea put forward at TPM yesterday), and so they're not worried at all. Or maybe the markets are driven, in some significant measure, by morons. Or worse still, by swing voters riding recumbent bicycles.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 12:46 PM
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The only thing wrong with my comment -- THE ONLY THING! -- is that Chewie was playing with C-3PO while Luke looked on, wasn't he?


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 12:48 PM
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Chewie played with Luke on the Millennium Falcon right before they learned that Alderon had been destroyed? Because he's worried about being impeached

Chewie was playing with R2D2 which makes you wrong on everything.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 12:49 PM
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1.2: I agree, like the markets ever gave a shit about questionable constitutional moves. (Or they might actually "react" but it will be because the uppity black man didn't use the opportunity to further the process of destroying the safety net.)

And on preview, Von Wafer points out a deeper truth about markets as befits his tenured faculty status.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 12:49 PM
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I'm pretty sure R2 was playing, and was advised by C3PO, "Let the Wookiee win."


Posted by: Mr. Blandings | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 12:49 PM
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Or worse still, by swing voters riding recumbent bicycles

Much worse -- they're driving SUVs way above the speed limit and talking on their cellphones.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 12:50 PM
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5 and 7 are why I lost my seat on the Council of Economic Advisers.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 12:52 PM
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Lifting the debt ceiling, as in a memo or exec order, strikes me as a gross arrogation of Congressional power. The debt ceiling is not a thing, it is a bill, a law, and the President cannot make law. I looked up Nixon's impoundment case to see if it pertained, I think it does, indirectly.

Ignoring the debt ceiling and cutting the checks anyway seems better, because that is a matter of conflicting laws, debt ceiling and appropriations (later law), and again with impoundment, the President may not make his own decisions as to which checks to cut. He must spend according to appropriations.

Lord knows I don't know what I am talking about, but then nobody else does either. Unpresidented we are.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 12:52 PM
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According to some financial guy quoted by McMegan, the problem with invoking the 14th is: who's going to buy debt (lend money) that has a chance of being declared illegal after the fact?


Posted by: DonBoy | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 12:52 PM
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I think Obama thought he could trick the GOP into passing what would become his signature accomplishment -- just like Clinton tricked them into passing welfare reform.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 12:52 PM
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If Obama is just going to snap his fingers and make the problem go away, I favor the platinum coin route. Much sillier.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 12:53 PM
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And it actually seems to me that the platinum coin route (and lord knows I don't know what I'm talking about) is closer to being straightforwardly legal than raising the debt ceiling.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 12:56 PM
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14: Jack Balkin agrees. Actually, and I have no idea what I'm talking about either, it sounds like it may be closer to being straightforwardly legal than default/refusing to pay funds that Congress has appropriated in binding laws. They could put Ronald Reagan's picture on them, even! Come on Obama, do you want to win the future or not?


Posted by: Katherine | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:04 PM
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It does leave open the possibility that someone will commit grand, grand, grand, grand larceny though.


Posted by: Katherine | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:06 PM
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I'm not sure I understand the platinum coin strategy. The pres tells the mint to make a coin saying $17gazillion? Then he says to the world, I have an additional $17gazillion in my pocket, so no worries about me paying back your debt?


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:06 PM
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15: Yeah, that's who I'm getting it from. I mean, it's self-evidently silly, but silly doesn't mean illegal.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:07 PM
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17: That's it. The basic idea is that it's not possible for a government with the power to print money to be unable to pay its debts -- it can always run the printing presses to print more. The complication is that we have tied our hands by putting the power to print money in the hands of the independent Fed, rather than in the hands of the Treasury (anyone who saw the discussion I got into a couple of days ago on this knows how well I understand this -- i.e., not very). The accidental out is that there's a law allowing Treasury to mint platinum coins, mostly as a favor to the platinum industry (I guess the idea is that you buy them to keep in your safe deposit box, like gold Kugerrands?), but that are real currency with whatever face value Treasury decides.

So Treasury mints a couple of trillion worth of platinum (which can be two quarter-size coins -- it doesn't have to be an amount of metal), deposits them in its account with the Fed, and uses the money to pay its debts.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:12 PM
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I see from the Felix Salmon thread there are problems with just cutting checks, but what is the Fed gonna do, say they will not honor SS checks or military payroll? Or will Bernanke and the govs decide which checks are good and which aren't? Because some x billion dollars worth are covered by revenues.

Ahh, politics, which is what happens when the law fails, when people don't know what to do or how to do it.

PS:I can't find the post, but today's news says some Goopers are getting the fear of God bond markets drummed into them. We may get a deal. Too bad.

What does it mean when the tragedies start to look like farces?


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:13 PM
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Anyone who understands this better than I do, straighten me out. Like I said, I get puzzled very easily on this topic.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:13 PM
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Complicating factors are that (as I understand it) it is generally recognized as bad, in the modern world, for a government rather than its independent central bank to be able to print money ad lib. Once we do this once, we could (AFAIK) do it as much as we like -- we could pay off the debt tomorrow if we felt like it and thought it was worth the inflation. The fact that the capacity to inflate the currency would be back in the hands of Treasury rather than in the Fed might make 'the markets' think ill of us in some possibly damaging way.

But I really, really, really don't know what I'm talking about.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:16 PM
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there's a law allowing Treasury to mint platinum coins, mostly as a favor to the platinum industry

Or some D&D freak gets to power and wants a form of currency that allows five times the purchasing power for the same weight of coins.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:18 PM
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Dave Dayen at firedoglake says the Boehner & Reid plans aren't very far apart & a combo is likely to pass.

I much prefer the idea of minting just enough million dollar (or whatever) platinum coins on a rolling base to avoid default until the Bush tax cuts expire next year. Who's with me? We can be the modern equivalent of the free silver populists.


Posted by: Katherine | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:21 PM
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1. If the $17gazillion coin gets made, it should have Marx on the one side and an outline of Kenya on the other.

2. If the coin gets made and I were Sasha or Malia, I would not rest until I got to touch it.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:22 PM
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1. If the $17gazillion coin gets made, it should have Marx on the one side and an outline of Kenya on the other.

More evidence of why I should have come to you in the story-boarding phase.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:24 PM
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24: We will not be crucified on a cross of bonds!


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:24 PM
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Hopefully tying it to the tax cuts, & making clear that you will remove these from circulation once they expire & the deficit declines, reassures investors somewhat. But I don't know what I'm talking about.

I wonder who'd have a more massive heart attack, Tim Geithner or Ron Paul.


Posted by: Katherine | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:25 PM
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25.2: Then run to the candy store! Do you have change for a 17 gazillion dollar coin?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:26 PM
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28: If I were President, I'd do it and simultaneously ask Congress to pass a law (a) eliminating the debt ceiling entirely -- it's functionless and harmful, while (b) eliminating the platinum coin loophole. Make it clear that we're using it to solve this ridiculous problem, but that it's not a plan going forward.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:27 PM
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I would want to embed at least one ruby in that thing.


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:28 PM
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30: good idea. I wish you were President.


Posted by: Katherine | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:28 PM
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they're driving SUVs way above the speed limit and talking on their cellphones.

Of course they are. They're rational actors. Look, the privilege of driving way about the speed limit in your SUV while talking on the cell phone is easily worth $100 a day. Running over someone and killing them might wind up raising your insurance premiums, but you have to discount that number by the likelihood of it happening, which isn't really that great, even if it is more likely than it would be if you were driving the speed limit in a Prius.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:29 PM
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The way the platinum coin thing works is that the Treasury mints the coin, and then deposits it at the Fed. The Fed credits the Treasury's account, so now the government has lots of money in it.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:30 PM
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When do we get to vote on the designs?


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:31 PM
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In California, we got to vote on our quarter design. Sadly, the people showed atrocious taste, and then we got a different medly coin anyway. I am opposed to medly coins.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:32 PM
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I think we should put Reagan on this coin, as a good will gesture.


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:32 PM
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Dave Dayen at firedoglake says the Boehner & Reid plans aren't very far apart & a combo is likely to pass.

Limiting my comments on the politics of faraway countries to stuff that's on the NPR news, Reid is saying that Senate Democrats won't touch the Boehner plan. How long would it take them to invent a compromise that looks like neither? Does the Senate have to consider the Boner thing first? Boner is having his own problems in the House. It's nearly Thursday.

IOW, seems to me that Barry has to pretend to be President for a day or two.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:36 PM
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I think we should put Reagan on this coin, as a good will gesture.

Reagan on the reverse; on the obverse George III, as in why did we bother?


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:37 PM
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we should put Reagan on this coin

If you mean dig him up, desecrate his body, and then ship his mouldering corpse to the Federal Reserve to rest atop the 17-gazillion dollar coin until it's removed from circulation, then I agree.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:38 PM
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When do we get to vote on the designs?

Young Elvis would win in a walk.


Posted by: Knecht Ruprecht | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:43 PM
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I'd kind of like the half-buried Statue of Liberty from Planet of the Apes on the reverse.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:44 PM
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40: It's possible that some people may not see this as a goodwill gesture, but you know how some people are.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:46 PM
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I think we should put Reagan on this coin, as a good will gesture.

When future historians write about the origins of the Great Platinum Hyperinflation of 2013, they will point out that it began not with the inauguration of President Bachmann, but with the decision in 2011 to put Reagan's image on the $17 gazillion coin.


Posted by: Knecht Ruprecht | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:47 PM
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Damn dirty apes.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:47 PM
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37 pwned by 15, but I see now that I was actually pwned by Balkin.

42: would we have to pay royalties?


Posted by: Katherine | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:53 PM
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but you know how some people are

Touchy?


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:55 PM
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I see Charlie Sheen on one side with his signature phrase, "Duh! Winning!" below. And on the reverse, a crack pipe.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:55 PM
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46: So we make the coin for 2 trillion + X dollars. Not a problem.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:56 PM
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My first idea was a clean and elegant set of facing fuck-you fingers, but then I thought Marx/Kenya would be more subtle. But if people are going to be touchy...


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 1:58 PM
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...but then I thought Marx/Kenya would be more subtle

If it is going to be worth $2 trillion, we may as well make it big enough to write all the lyrics of "Hold on to the Nights."


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:08 PM
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Elbee is on a roll here. "Damn dirty apes" should be written across the bottom, like "in God we trust."


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:09 PM
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For Kanye, we would do "Gold Digger" for obvious reasons.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:10 PM
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37, 15, and whoever is awesome. Because really this is all ultimately Reagan's fault.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:13 PM
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As long as we're talking about realistic and relatively painless solutions, just overdrawing with the fed seems to be very underdiscussed. Is there some obvious reason it wouldn't work?

Treasury has an account at the Fed; at last count it was in credit to the tune of roughly $77 billion. Money's coming in; money's going out. Come August 2, it'll be down to zero. But hey, zero's just a number. We've all gone overdrawn at our bank at some time or another: why should Treasury be any exception?
The idea here is that after August 2, Treasury can simply carry on with business as usual. Money will come in to its bank account; money will go out. And the balance will dip below zero: Treasury will have an overdraft at the Fed. You think the Fed's going to bounce Treasury's checks?
The question is whether the overdraft counts as national debt for the purposes of calculating the debt ceiling. And Carney thinks there's a good case to be made that it doesn't:
The debt ceiling applies to the face amount of obligations issued under Chapter 31 of Title 31 of the U.S. Code--basically, Treasury notes and bills and the other standard kinds of government debt--and the "face amount of obligations whose principal and interest are guaranteed by the United States Government." But overdrafts on the Federal Reserve wouldn't be Treasurys and they aren't explicitly guaranteed by the U.S. government.

Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:15 PM
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I have a design (sans text). Should I post to the flickr group or email it to someone?


Posted by: Katherine | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:15 PM
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If it is going to be worth $2 trillion, we may as well make it big enough to write all the lyrics of "Hold on to the Nights."

Well, at that rate we could probably make it play the music.


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:21 PM
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Post to Flickr! (I hate to wait.)


Posted by: Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:22 PM
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I think we should put Reagan on this coin, as a good will gesture.

That would be entirely appropriate, as Reagan really inauguarated the era of gigantic perma-deficits.

The Fed could also handle this problem itself, by vaporizing the $1.7 trillion in Federal bonds it owns (i.e. returning them to the Treasury) and to keep its balance sheeet proper it could lower bank excess reserve accounts by the same amount.



Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:24 PM
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59: That's what Ron Paul keeps saying, isn't it?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:26 PM
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What happened to Ron Paul's zany scheme? Haven't been following at all closely, but if Dean Baker says it's A-OK...


Posted by: harry the stiff sod | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:26 PM
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55: It's illegal, as the discussion thread there makes clear.



Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:30 PM
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Curses. Anyway, it probably requires congressional approval, which brings you lot back to square one.


Posted by: harry the stiff sod | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:31 PM
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60-61: yes, looks like the same idea.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:31 PM
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Coin design posted. Also a picture of my kid.


Posted by: Katherine | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:37 PM
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Actually, Ron Paul is interesting to bring up because thinking of this stuff brings you face to face with the truth that drives him crazy -- that our monetary system is fully socialized and therefore it is only artificial and arcane legal constraints that stop us from directing whatever level of resources (up to the economy's productive capacity) to whatever ends we want. If we keep screwing up democracy I'm sure that a strongman armed with a legal "opinion" from some White House chief counsel will take advantage of that capacity.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:44 PM
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Actually, what drove Ron Paul crazy is a bit of a mystery, but I'm certain that his decline into madness long predated his familiarity with the cooked nature of our markets.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:48 PM
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62, 63: is Paul's scheme illegal? Doesn't sound the same as just overdrawing. As attached as I'm getting to the Free Platinum movement it does sound a lot less crazy.


Posted by: Katherine | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:48 PM
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Actually, the bottom of tails side of the coin should say "You bastards. You finally did it. You blew it up. Damn you all to hell."


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:52 PM
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Wait I got it wrong. It's You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:54 PM
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Maybe just "You Maniacs! You blew it up!"


Posted by: Katherine | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 2:58 PM
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PGD, can you email me (see this message for address)? I have an unrelated question.


Posted by: Katherine | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 3:04 PM
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Regardless of legality (and I'd be amazed if it was legal, especially for the Fed), the idea of the Treasury being overdrawn at the Fed basically kills the monetary system. In a post gold standard world, the Fed, while independent, only has credibility because it is backed by the full faith and credit of the government, which has tax raising powers. If the Treasury can't pay what it owes to the Fed, what exactly is backing the currency?


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 3:05 PM
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62: the discussion thread there does not make that clear to me. I see disagreement about the topic, and the "not illegal" side seems to have the better argument.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 3:17 PM
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The whole Republican strategy reminds me of this.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 3:20 PM
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what exactly is backing the currency

Nothing backs a fiat currency except peoples' willingness to accept it.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 3:31 PM
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and, backtracking a bit on 76 right away, the government's willingness to accept the currency as a means of paying taxes...that's the major way taxation supports the currency. Taxes also give the ability to drain resources out of the system when necessary to prevent inflation. I don't think account balances at the Fed enter into it.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 3:33 PM
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66: Well, as long as they stick to the "up to the economy's productive capacity" part, that's sort of the point of fiat money, no? Of course, if they don't, you end up like this.


Posted by: harry the stiff sod | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 3:34 PM
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I guess I am a part of the erosion of belief in the idea of the United States because I believe that Fed sucks donkey dicks because they fundamentally are working in the interests of people who no longer believe in the idea of the United States.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 3:44 PM
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I thought the Fed sucked donkey dicks because horses run to fast for them to catch.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 4:09 PM
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And they'd have to stand on shoulders of dwarves to reach them even if they did.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 4:13 PM
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79: As Yglesias is fond of pointing out, things might be different if Obama did his bloody job with respect to the 2 vacant seats (out of a total of 7) on the Fed's Board of Governors.


Posted by: harry the stiff sod | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 4:18 PM
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Nothing backs a fiat currency except peoples' willingness to accept it.

Of course. But for the US dollar, now, the reason people are willing to accept it is because it is backed by the Treasury's tax raising power, combined with the Fed's ostensible independence in monetary policy. Basically, it is effectively impossible for the Fed not to be able to honour currency. But that's not true if the Treasury can't back up the Fed because it has no money.

It needn't always be so, but a Treasury with an overdraft at the Fed entails a vastly different monetary system than we have now.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 5:07 PM
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OT: As this is the serious thread, can somebody let me know if extending diplomatic recognition to the Libyan rebels is ad hoc posturing or if somebody thinks the facts on the ground mean the rebels will effectively control Libya soon or if this is part of a considered effort to link diplomatic recognition with some basic human rights standards?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 5:13 PM
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You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!

Take your stinking paws debt limits off me, you damned dirty ape legislative branch!


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 5:24 PM
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84:Libya is No. 8 on Stirling Newberry's Articles of Infamy

8. Failure to engage in the simple act of removing the dictator of Libya once that course was decided upon, and allowing the rest of the Arab Spring to become like the Revolution of 1830 in France: replace one dictator with another. In case you don't know they are still beating protestors in Egypt.

Is Obama the Worst President Ever?

In addition, Obama has chosen to play a game of chicken in order to do something which is overtly corrupt, namely he is acting at the direct behest of Standard and Poors, which threatened a downgrade of US debt, unless there was a 4 trillion dollar over 10 years deficit reduction. Now that means 400 billion dollars a year of anti-stimulus, about the size of the stimulus bill, in fact, and all of it on spending, so likely to produce a full effect. This demand is a demand for an Ireland style collapse in the country, policy so bad as to put it with the unequivocally worst acts of government ever: The Fugitive Slave Act, the 1930 FY Budget, Jim Crow, and the Alien and Sedition Act.

By setting this as a baseline, alone, Obama vaults into contention for worst ever. First because it is policy wrong, and second because it is so obviously tied to securing funds for re-election which he is pursuing and almost 40K a plate, that's the median individual income in the US. According to his opponents, who are only a bit off the mark, one third of his money is from Wall Street.

There is more on the debt crisis.

I love that man.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 5:28 PM
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84.1: The Libyan effort is not unilateral nor were the first steps taken by him if I recall correctly.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 5:40 PM
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I mean 86.1.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 5:41 PM
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87, 88: "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 5:42 PM
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Or from another 1968 film with stinking apes who can't keep their paws off stuff:

I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a... fraid. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am a Federal Republic . I became operational at the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on the 4th of July 1776. My instructor was Mr. Jefferson, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 5:50 PM
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Oh, cheer up! We haven't even had a coup. Yet.


Posted by: YK | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 6:17 PM
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Short answer: b/c Pres. isn't granted the power to do so either by the Constitution or by Congress - in fact Congress explicitly limited the power to lift the debt ceiling to itself. Executive order would be the least constitutional thing the President could do.

But paying obligations on the debt first, and everything else second? Sure. Simply writing checks on the argument that the 14th Amendment requires it? Weaker, but still yes.

I'm not particularly worried about a potential default though.

And while some news stories are spinning today's market decline as a result of the debt-ceiling debate, that's absolute bullshit. The driver behind today's market drop was a durable goods orders report that came in way under expectations, which lowered estimates of economic growth.


Posted by: Andrew F. | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 6:30 PM
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So, if the Feds stopped paying bills to service debt obligations, what would they drop first. I'm worried that my clients might not get their social security checks.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 7:09 PM
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I presume the US recognized the rebels since their major European allies had already done so and the US was getting pressured by them. I was against the Libya campaign, but not in a particularly strong way, and given that it came about with _very_ heavy pressure from outside allies and is being done with explicit UN authorization this may be the only thing I'm not mad at Obama for right now.


Posted by: teraz kurwa my | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 7:24 PM
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somebody thinks the facts on the ground mean the rebels will effectively control Libya soon

"Despite more than four months of sustained air strikes by NATO, the rebels have failed to secure any military advantage. Colonel Gaddafi has survived what observers perceive as attempts to eliminate him and, despite the defection of a number of senior commanders, there is no sign that he will be dethroned in a palace coup. The regime controls around 20 per cent more territory than it did in the immediate aftermath of the uprising on 17 February."


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 7:34 PM
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A couple of years ago CA was issuing IOUs; doesn't that sound like the weaksauce kind of thing Obama would do in an emergency? But who to? since I bet a lot more of the federal budget goes to the vulnerable and/or politically untouchable. Military contractors might stave off the end.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 7:37 PM
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94: Right. That's what I don't get since the UN is usually very big on diplomatically recognizing whatever asshole controls the ground (and not without reason) and that when it deviates from this historically, it has erred in the direction of recognizing the old set of assholes (e.g. ROC).

I'm not big on the thing bombing either, though I'd be very happy to see Quaddafi go, but I don't understand how events are unfolding.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 7:39 PM
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Libya is a total clusterfuck, as it was destined to be all along. Gadaffi, in addition to being a willing butcher, has a gift for self-preservation. Which is to say, I don't think there's any reason to believe that a breakthrough is imminent, and I suspect that teraz is right: we recognized the rebels to appease our allies and also, perhaps even more important, because our relationship with the current regime can't ever be salvaged no matter what we do at this point*.

On preview, I see that Apo got there first. Whatever, he's a Jew-hating bastard slut.

* Not even a free suite at the Fontainbleu would do it.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 7:43 PM
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95: I was hoping somebody in government knows that is wrong. This is a major shift away from any past concept of diplomatic reciprocity and it is being half-assed to all external appearances. Recognizing the government in exile thing as been done, but to the best of my knowledge it has always been a government that had ruled there before or could somehow claim to have been wrongfully booted. I may be missing a counter example, so that's why I was asking.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 7:43 PM
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I don't understand how events are unfolding.

Lots more people even than usual are being displaced and dying. Beyond that, it's the status quo, isn't it?


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 7:44 PM
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Is it not the case that the US would have enough to service its debt and cover Medicare, SS and the military (active duty, not sure about veterans benefits), and essentially nothing left for anything else? Kevin Drum had a post to that effect a short while ago, and I've seen it mapped out elsewhere.

Of course, there might be things we'd consider more important than SS or medicare checks, like air traffic controllers.

I find it frustrating that energy is going toward hating on Obama (who is far from an angel) that should be going toward hating the Tea Party-inflected right wing.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 7:45 PM
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I think, parsimon, that many of the people who are currently hating on President Obama have, in the past, hated on movement conservatives of all stripes. Indeed, many if not most of these people still do loathe the GOP, the Tea Party, the Club for Growth, Red State, and James Shearer. But these people also believe that the president, through a series of calculations and missteps (it's very hard to know how many of each), is in some significant measure culpable for bringing us to this fateful place. And that sense, I'm guessing, accounts for their anger.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 7:54 PM
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The Newberry piece is very good and he's right up one side and down the other about the domestic and budgetary stuff, but "(f)ailure to engage in the simple act of removing the dictator of Libya" is crazy talk. Invading and deposing a government, even one that's unpopular and militarily weak, is not a simple act. We've got two excellent current examples of just how unsimple it is.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 7:54 PM
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because our relationship with the current regime can't ever be salvaged no matter what we do at this point

Also, Franco is still dead. There was never much hope of that.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 7:54 PM
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Be fair: invading and deposing is easy. Putting something durable up thereafter is hard.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 7:56 PM
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See, for example, Professor Krugman, Kevin Drum, and many of the good and generous folks who frequent this eatery. As a counterexample, there seems to be the increasingly angry (dare I say "shrill"?) voices at BalloonJuice. They are being drowned out, I think you'll agree. Maybe there's a reason for that.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 7:56 PM
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There was never much hope of that.

Are you saying that our decision to join the bombing campaign and to target Gadaffi and his family hasn't worsened relations with Tripoli? I guess, while I understand that we never sent the man Bloom County* Christmas cards, I think things are now a bit chillier even than they were before.

* What can I say? The man just can't get enough of Opus.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 7:59 PM
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There was never much hope of that.

It wasn't very long ago that Libya was being held up as a model of rapprochement with the West and being congratulated by the US government on rejoining the international community.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 8:00 PM
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You're such a literalist, apo. Try a little sarcasm! It really lightens the mood!


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 8:03 PM
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and allowing the rest of the Arab Spring to become like the Revolution of 1830 in France

This too assigns the US president magical powers that he just chose not to employ.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 8:07 PM
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I'm totally not following 106 if it's a followup to 102. It is to say that Balloon Juice is shrilly fixated on the dementia of the right wing, forgiving Obama, while others have moved on to blaming Obama? (I don't think that fairly describes Drum, for what it's worth.)


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 8:15 PM
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In fairness, I don't read Balloon Juice. I only went there when a friend sent me a link to a post, by John Cole, that seemed to be nothing but outrage that anyone would dare apportion some blame to President Obama for the current fix. As for Drum, I think he's a gentler, more muted version of Krugman: both believe that the president has negotiated poorly, both believe that the president is getting a good deal of what he wants (austerity during a downturn!), and both believe that the GOP is far worse.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 8:25 PM
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The "Wall Street will flex its muscles and get Congress to vote the right their way" theory sounded more plausible a few weeks ago. I have no idea what Wall St's influencers have been up to, but I find it hard to believe they haven't tried yet. That kind of influence is more about reciprocity than straight-up vote buying persuasion and it takes time to develop that kind of relationship.

To the extent that the holdouts on the Republican side - that is, Republicans who aren't happy with their own party's "plan" much less the Democratic ones - are freshmen or relatively new representatives, they probably haven't had time to see what Wall St. can do for them. To the extent that they're on the side of the people who initially voted against the bailout, they're probably even less receptive to the bankers' ideas of what's right than other politicians might be. To the extent that their ideology was formed in the Club for Growth, anti-tax absolutism side of conservative activism, they seem the least likely people to 1) develop a conscience and 2) vote their conscience (or find some other reason to vote to raise the roof) rather than voting the way they've pledged to do. And to the extent that they're serious when, as I've seen it reported of some, they say that they came to Washington for a particular purpose and don't care about re-election, then there are few tools of persuasion left to change their minds. There seems to be a belief, maybe not widely held, that default will be like some kind of ritual purification, leading the US to shed all of its excess waste and then be reborn as a leaner, but still last best hope for etc. etc. blah blah

To all of these extents, I wonder if the smart money on Wall St is, instead or alongside attempts to change minds, actively looking for places to shelter their money where it will be affected least by the default. If there is a default, I expect later to see reports about how some firms profited by betting it would happen.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 8:29 PM
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113 seems right on to me, especially the part about the ritual purification and the part about bankers finding a safe harbor for their money.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 8:35 PM
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107, 108: And people were also howling in the streets (on two continents) about the release of somebody involved in the Lockerbie bombing. Rejoining the international community was a long process. So far, he gave some money (victim compensation) and some sanctions were removed, but Libya's assets were still held. Obviously, there is much less hope of rapprochement now while there was some before, but I think the "before" hope was fairly slim. I think that rapprochement would have waited until Quadaffi died.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 8:39 PM
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I'm probably a bit too harsh on the pre-bombing chances of rapprochement, but still, it was hardly a done deal.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 8:43 PM
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112: I don't disagree that Obama (and the entire Democratic caucus, mind) has given up a great deal. I tend to think that they greatly misunderestimated the strength of the Tea Party caucus, that they've granted far too much to the notion that the deficit is gravely important at this time; that Obama's taking on of corporate advisers is, shall we say, dispiriting. I'm putting it mildly. I know.

At this time, however, the greatest enemy remains the 79 or 80 House Republicans who refuse to raise the debt ceiling without a balanced budget amendment. I'd like to keep my eye on the ball.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 8:45 PM
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The only thing wrong with my comment -- THE ONLY THING! -- is that Chewie was playing with C-3PO while Luke looked on, wasn't he?

You also misspelled "Alderaan."


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 8:51 PM
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116: I agree. My point above was just that the bombing, and especially the targeting of Gadaffi's family, surely have scuttled all hopes of improving relations further. So, the thinking in recognizing the rebels well might have been, why the fuck not?


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 8:52 PM
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118: like I said, my ignorance of Star Wars lore already cost me a seat on the Council of Economic Advisers. And now you're trying to take my dignity, too? Have you no shame? Do you not recognize a beaten man?


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 8:53 PM
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117: by all means you should keep your eye wherever you'd like, parsimon. I don't think anyone suggested otherwise. I was responding to your frustration at people who have chosen to keep one eye on the GOP caucus while, with the other, sending some stink the president's way.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 8:55 PM
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112: a post, by John Cole, that seemed to be nothing but outrage that anyone would dare apportion some blame to President Obama for the current fix

You're wrong about this, by the way. Cole is just as pissed off about the variety of proposed austerity programs as anyone. You may have read a post of his railing at the Firebaggers who want to primary Obama, to the point at times of seeming to join forces with (cue ominous music) Grover Norquist. Railing against that can make a person sound like an Obama-bot.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 8:57 PM
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119: Because bombing might make you look militant but extending diplomatic relations to rebels who have not had much success makes you look delusional?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 8:57 PM
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121: by all means you should send some stink wherever you'd like, Wafer. I didn't suggest otherwise.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 8:59 PM
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123: I think the whole fiasco, from start to finish, makes the US look delusional.

122: nope, this was Cole suggesting that President Obama had actually played his hand in the debt negotiations masterfully and that his critics were deluded fools and firebaggers. It was, I should say, at a moment when such a contention didn't appear utterly ridiculous. Cole may have changed his tune by now. Like I said, I don't read him.

124: actually, no, you did suggest otherwise, but I think it's probably best if we agree to disagree.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 9:04 PM
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I thought I had 122 above 123. Maybe that's why I lost my seat on the CEA.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 9:05 PM
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Speaking of Star Wars and diplomats, I should probably not have that photo with Hillary Clinton photo and Natalie Portman in the very cold room as my desktop at work.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 9:05 PM
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Photo, photo, photo. I'll type it a few more times.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 9:11 PM
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104

Also, Franco is still dead ...

Still not dead, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.


Posted by: James B. Shearer | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 9:17 PM
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125.last: I was actually just laughing at that point: we're on the same side. I've said several times that I'm not happy with Obama; just trying to keep my eye on the guys who are very much worse, so as not to engage in a circular firing squad.

Peace. Out.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 9:18 PM
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The federal agency that oversees national banks said Wednesday that it would tell banks to "exercise judgment" before penalizing customers who overdrew their accounts because money from the government that did not arrive on schedule.
Obviously their judgment will be to milk that baby. How many people in this country a) live paycheck to paycheck and b) get some form of federal assistance? 50 million? Times average of one overdraft each @ $35 = $1.7B extra profit for banks this quarter.
Posted by: SP | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 9:58 PM
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Obama is playing the Rethugs like a harp, by the way. Running absolute rings around them at such a pace that his own party can't keep up. Whatever his flaws, Timothy Burke is quite wrong to be comparing him to Buchanan.

This situation is the kind of thing a politician dreams of: the opposition gambling everything on a painfully obvious bluff, and slowly, agonizingly twisting in the wind as it searches for a way to save face after the bluff has been called. The spectacle has already shattered the Republicans' disciplined image and humiliated them utterly. Now, if a compromise is reached, it's because of Republican capitulation and because the President and his caucus were the grown ups and patiently talked the children down from the tree. And if it isn't, of bloody course he'll use the 14th Amendment, and will have absolutely ironclad political cover for doing so thanks to the Republicans.

Meanwhile, every day the GOP side of the aisle sweats, stares down those two loaded barrels and waffles in pathetic desperation, its wealthy base is getting a good, long, loving look at what it really got for its money in those Tea Party rubes. Each day that goes by just hammers the point home harder: yes, they're really this stupid. This is the future of your party on its current course. Look upon it, and despair.

There's lots to be disgruntled with Obama about. But the handling of this debt crisis isn't one of them. He's seen an opportunity to hang the GOP by its own entrails, and is using it to the full, and that's exactly what he should be doing.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-27-11 10:09 PM
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132: It's possible this is plan B. Plan A was clearly "a historic deal". But they better have a plan C, because the danger they won't manage to pass anything in time is real.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 12:02 AM
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Slack, I so rarely disagree with you, but this time I don't even know where to start. The thing is, I suspect that what you wrote is pretty much what the president believes. But there are at least four problems with that formulation: first, the Democrats have capitulated entirely. The deal being offered by Reid, at least as it stands now, contains no new revenues. So unless the GOP fire eaters bail out the Dems, Reid and Obama are pretty much having their balls served to them for lunch. Second, the political win that you're describing is just the kind of nuanced reading of the state of play that is completely beyond the American electorate. I can't tell you how many times in my life I've felt just as you seem to now -- certain that the Dems have the better of a major political fight -- only to realize that swing voters have no idea what's going on. If unemployment doesn't go down, if the economy doesn't improve more broadly, Romney will have the same (very good) chance to beat Obama that he had before we got into this mess. Third, Obama put SS and Medicare cuts on the table. Fortunately for him, the GOP couldn't take yes for an answer. But as a matter of policy and politics, I can't fathom how that move was anything but a misstep. Fourth and finally, he has deepened the popular misapprehension that austerity during a downturn is a non-crazy alternative. Again, as a matter of politics and policy, that's a loser.

So, sure, the GOP may bail him out yet. I hope that's what happens. I really, really do. I want Obama to win in a cakewalk next year and then, having learned how crazy his opponents really are, tack hard to left during his second term. But I can't see that as anything like the odds-on end game at this point. I just don't see it.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 12:53 AM
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Also, Team Obama, both in public and private, has explicitly rejected the 14th Amendment move. Were they posturing? Maybe. But, as I understand it, there wasn't a lot of wiggle room in their response to questions on the subject.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 12:54 AM
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I kind of have to agree with Von Wafer. At some point you have to take into account the possibility that this isn't all a massive scheme, but that Obama a) is just not a particularly good negotiator and b) actually agrees with the R side that cutting the deficit, right now, is really, really important. (In this he is, of course, wrong.)


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 1:22 AM
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95: the rebels controlled a LOT more in the immediate aftermath of the uprising than when NATO started bombing--a lot of initial momentum (I remember reading a rumor that Mitiga airbase in Tripoli, which is what the CIA used for prisoner transfers, had fallen), then a fierce & largely successful counterattack by Gaddafi, then slow gains after the NATO bombing started. So the overall trend may still be in their favor but I don't think Gaddafi is imminently going to collapse. As for the reason for recognition, I vaguely remember reading that it makes it legally possible to give aid.


Posted by: Katherine | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:33 AM
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110: we could do more in Egypt & Bahrain, certainly. Syria, not so much.


Posted by: Katherine | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:35 AM
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137: agree; remember, the reason for Nato starting the bombing in the first place was that Gaddafi was winning against the rebels.

The recognition will allow frozen Libyan assets to be channelled to the NTC, who will use them to buy (I sincerely hope) guns and ammunition, of which they are still extremely short.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:54 AM
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I'm not sure the Reid plan leads to actual big cuts. Most of the savings come from imposing caps on spending on Iraq and Afghanistan. These are cuts that are expected to happen anyway. The rest of the money comes from better enforcement for fraud and tax evasion, I think. (That's what it sounds like from the CBO letter, though I could be misreading the bureaucratese.)


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 3:12 AM
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Third, Obama put SS and Medicare cuts on the table. Fortunately for him, the GOP couldn't take yes for an answer. But as a matter of policy and politics, I can't fathom how that move was anything but a misstep.

Yeah, pretty much. It's like he wants the few remaining arguments for the Democratic coalition to collapse under the weight of accrued acquiescence.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 4:25 AM
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The deal being offered by Reid, at least as it stands now, contains no new revenues. So unless the GOP fire eaters bail out the Dems, Reid and Obama are pretty much having their balls served to them for lunch.

If -- and this is a big if -- Obama has the balls to engage in an election-year showdown over the extension of the Bush tax cuts, the absence of of a revenue deal in the debt ceiling negotiations will be a Good Thing. Remember, at current course and speed, all the Bush tax cuts are going to expire. They cannot be extended without the concurrence of the Senate and the President. All the revenue deals being floated in the debt ceiling negotiations represented a worse outcome than simply letting the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire -- and a much worse outcome than letting the entire package expire. Giving up that leverage in exchange for some piddling symbolic revenue increase would be foolhardy in the extreme.

I'm cribbing this argument from Chait, who has been banging this drum especially hard.


Posted by: Knecht Ruprecht | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 4:54 AM
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I agree about the best outcome, but what's going to make that politically possible now when it wasn't last winter? I don't understand why it wasn't last winter, of course.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 5:03 AM
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Last winter, the one year extension of the tax cuts was the bargaining chip that bought a 60-vote majority in the Senate for a modest, but important collection of Dem policy priorities (payroll tax holiday, extension of unemployment benefits). You could argue that Obama should have gotten more out of the bargain, but it wasn't nothing.

Looking forward to 2012, I don't see the downside of having an election-year argument between the Obama position (extend the middle class cuts only -- veto any bill that extends the upper class cuts) and the GOP position (no extension of the middle class cuts without the upper class tax cuts), where the default position (all cuts expire) is the best policy outcome. This is a negotiation even Obama can't fuck up (though he might find a way to surprise me).


Posted by: Knecht Ruprecht | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 5:12 AM
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VW says it's a loss for the president, and David Brooks is going to say it's a win for the president. Who are independents going to believe?

Fortunately, if the Reid plan is what happens, Cantor and the nutballs will paint it as an Obama win as well.

I can see the political argument for going as far with the cuts as the general public is going to let you go, and then having the tax increase (through sunset) argument after the public has had its fill of cuts. What I don't see is the economic argument for austerity just right now.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 6:01 AM
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From what I can tell, I don't think either plan will directly lead to austerity. They don't really seem to cut much of anything. The CBO scores military expenditure in a certain way. But writing caps on spending in Iraq and Afghanistan into law changes the way the CBO scores it, so you get a cut on paper, even if the government ends up spending the same amount of money. Cracking down on fraud might be contractionary, but how big can the effect be? If they have to ramp up spending on enforcement now, which leads to less fraud later, then it could even be expansionary.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 6:21 AM
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Remember, at current course and speed, all the Bush tax cuts are going to expire

Just like last year.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 7:27 AM
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Does it matter if it's a win for Obama if it means social security?


Posted by: Martin Wisse | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 8:19 AM
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134: The Dems would only have "capitulated" if they had offered anything the Republicans would accept. They haven't -- neither Reid nor Obama -- and knew they weren't. It's a pretty basic political negotiation ploy. The point is to look like the guy who was willing to do the adult thing. (That's why it's driving the GOP, especially the Tea Partiers, so nuts. They know enough to know exactly what's being done to them, good and hard.)

Fourth and finally, he has deepened the popular misapprehension that austerity during a downturn is a non-crazy alternative

No, the Republicans have. The beauty of it is that it works so well not at the level of "this the way political junkies like us will see it;" Dem political junkies look at these feint offers from Reid and Obama and blanch, oh my God, what if it happened? The point is that it works at the level of fuzzy awareness that swing voters work at. If you hear the news once a week out of the corner of your ear, what do you hear? "Dems offer compromise, GOP say no, crisis continues." "Tea Partiers refuse to accept GOP House Leader's offer." GOP = no, no = crisis.

Again, be disgruntled at Obama over Gitmo. Over Libya. Over executive overreach. But I think people who think they know more than he does about this kind of politics are, it's obvious at this point, kidding themselves.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 8:24 AM
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If -- and this is a big if -- Obama has the balls to engage in an election-year showdown over the extension of the Bush tax cuts, the absence of of a revenue deal in the debt ceiling negotiations will be a Good Thing.

This is why it's crucial to avoid a merely temporary raising of the debt ceiling: allowing a similar hostage-taking over the debt ceiling to occur again next year provides Republicans leverage to force an extension of the Bush tax cuts.

I feel I'm stating the obvious. In any case, going with this line of thought, the Obama tactic is to remove the hostages from the 2012 scene, which would seem to be smart.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 8:27 AM
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But I think people who think they know more than he does about this kind of politics are, it's obvious at this point, kidding themselves.

Obvious? At this point it's not at all obvious to me, who's kidding themselves.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 8:27 AM
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(Further to 150.last: is that a tactic or a strategy?)


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 8:32 AM
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151: Cf. the Wall Street Journal's palpable desperation at how openly the GOP are being out-maneuvered.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 8:35 AM
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151 is a mild way of putting it. I think you are kidding yourself, DS. The substantive policy outcome is definitely bad for the Dems. The effects on the 2012 race are less clear but look at the polls on the # of people who think that spending cuts create jobs, and therefore trust the GOP more on unemployment. This is NOT because of the inveterate conservatism of the U.S. electorate, because when you get into specifics the polls also show voters would rather raise taxes & cut military spending than cut social security, Medicare, or Medicaid. It's because the economy sucks, the GOP says it's because of gov't spending, and the Democrats appear to more or less agree. Maybe the realization that the GOP House Caucus are a bunch of lunatics outweighs this, but maybe since Obama's effort to be "the grownup" appears entirely ineffective, people will trust Mitt Romney to be "the grownup" instead. I don't know if that will happen--I am much more focused on the substantive effects, and they're rotten.

As with health care & the public option, the actual liberal policy polls better, but that could hardly be less relevant to what happens in the White House and the Capitol.


Posted by: Katherine | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 8:46 AM
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(Oh, and Mitt Romney is never going to have a shot at Obama, for the simple reason that no matter how photogenic, a Mormon tainted with the word "healthcare" is never going to survive a Republican primary. The one to worry about is Rick Perry.)


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 8:51 AM
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154: I guess we'll see. I sort of feel the same way about it now as when certain of us were being told that we were "kidding ourselves" to think the inexperienced Obama could win a Presidential election.

In the meantime, this survey of the political impact by the NYT is interesting.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 8:58 AM
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154: none of this will matter if the economy picks up in the next year and a half. No one will give a damn about the whole debt ceiling business. If the economy picks up, they'll credit Obama, and he'll win the election, even if he only managed to raise the debt ceiling by shooting Eric Cantor in the head.

As Monty said: "What the American people want is a victory. Give them a victory and they won't care who won it."


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 9:00 AM
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The substantive policy outcome is definitely bad for the Dems.

Do you disagree with that, DS?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 9:02 AM
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"What the American people want is a victory. Give them a victory and they won't care who won it."

Which is why the leaders of Grenada* are the ones most fervently praying for an economic recovery.

*Or similar small accessible island that no one big gives a crap about.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 9:05 AM
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158: Yes, since there isn't a "substantive policy outcome."


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 9:07 AM
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157: I agree it won't matter if the economy really gets going, but that seems pretty unlikely.

Do you also think that it won't matter if the economy continues to be weak, because in that case Obama is certain to lose?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 9:07 AM
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161.2: pretty much, yes*. The economy can still be weak in absolute terms, but it really has to be getting stronger for Obama to stand a chance.


*Though there's always the chance of something else intervening; "events, dear boy, events".


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 9:30 AM
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I would be remiss if I failed to highlight the tea party darling of Illinois, who "won't place one more dollar of debt upon the backs of [his] kids..." Well, of federal debt. Child support debt is a separate issue.


Posted by: Di Kotimy | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 9:39 AM
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(Oh, and Mitt Romney is never going to have a shot at Obama, for the simple reason that no matter how photogenic, a Mormon tainted with the word "healthcare" is never going to survive a Republican primary. The one to worry about is Rick Perry.)

No way, man. Obama's god-given gift of opponents who implode is holding strong. The entire Republican bench is a clownshow. The man is tall and handsome and has already been black for four years. His kids haven't killed anyone and his wife likes him. He cannot lose to any of the current Republican field. I'd worry about Petraeus, maybe, or even a generic Republican. But if you worry about an Obama match-up against anyone we've seen so far, you're worrying just because you enjoy the wallow. No, the economy won't decide everything, because people know it came from Bush, so it tars the Dems and Reps equally.

Frankly, the Republican field is so weak that Obama should do like Jerry Brown did here, and not bother to campaign until September.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 10:01 AM
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the economy won't decide everything, because people know it came from Bush

While it's still Obama's election to lose, I believe you are wildly overestimating what people know. America is a nation full of people who barely pay any attention at all to politics between presidential elections and know even less about economics.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 10:09 AM
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I very much agree with you that voters are generally low-information, and have a fuzzy sense of this at best. But their fuzzy sense is that Bush and the Republicans got us into this. Obama is still Teflon.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 10:13 AM
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Also wildly underestimating the extent of popular belief that small government is the path to prosperity. We haven't seen Rick Perry yet in his full glory, but he'll arguably be able to sweep up Bachmann's supporters, and can claim executive experience and job-creating ability (however much that last is a fudge).

Inexplicably, a lot of people think he's handsome. I'm hoping that he's prone to gaffes or some such.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 10:18 AM
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166: I don't think Obama is going to be able to run on the public perception that he's the person second-most responsible for the screwed up economy.

Lord knows that the public often doesn't apportion political blame appropriately, but Obama has been given pretty much everything he asked for to fix the economy, and the economy isn't fixed, and won't be by election day.

And when the Republicans blame Obama for trying to raise the Medicare age, they'll be right about that, too.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 10:24 AM
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Except that the clowns he'll be running against is 1. a clown, and 2. from the party that is the first-most responsible for the screwed up economy.

Look, Obama doesn't deserve his luck, and the country doesn't deserve the current Republican field, but this election is not going to be close and there's no need to get wound up about it.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 10:27 AM
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164: Inasmuch as any of them are worth worrying about. I'm not inclined to lose too much sleep about Obama's ability to beat him, TBH; but that's because I don't believe Obama will make the huge mistake of underestimating him that many other Dems are making. Perry is a clownshow insofar as the entire GOP is such, but he's not Romney or Pawlenty or Bachmann: he's a very long way from being a pushover or a fool, politically speaking, and would very disagreeably surprise a Dem candidate who took him lightly. And he will almost certainly win the nomination if he runs, which he seems guaranteed to do (he's doing the old Nixon "I'm-not-running" warm-up right now).

Oddly enough I think there would be a lot less to worry about from a "war hero" run, like Petraeus (there a "draft Petraeus" campaign going on or something?). The GOP loves war as profit and entertainment and something you send poor people to do, but it doesn't seem to care for actual soldiers much (it could be the ratfucking and doublethink essential to conservative politics doesn't suit them, or at least their image, very well). And American voters seem to be far more suckers for a man with a good stylist than for a man in uniform.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 10:29 AM
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It's not a good idea to become complacent about Obama's reelection, Megan. There's still going to be a lot of work to be done to ensure it. Hardcore Christian Blacks are quite upset about his embrace of homosexuality; working class whites are increasingly convinced he wants to take and redistribute their money to the undeserving; aspirational middle class whites are captured by a tax-and-spend liberals narrative, which is, you know, job killing.

The anti-Obama threads out there are stronger than you think, I think.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 10:40 AM
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but this election is not going to be close and there's no need to get wound up about it.

If the October 2012 unemployment rate is 7%, and I think Obama's odds are maybe 70-30 in his favor. As it is, I think In-Trade is right to put his odds at 56%.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 10:41 AM
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Nope. I'm not worried about Perry, because of this. (We already knew that I only have one filter.) That's an article saying how Texas can't build water projects despite their worst drought ever. The Tea Party/big money Republican split is right in there. In California at least, big ag and Republican money would never go to a Republican politician who can't get a water project built. That's Tea Party recalcitrance, but it is where wealthy self-interested Republicans split off. Perry can't get elected on Tea Party votes alone, and he isn't getting it done for big ag. He's no threat.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 10:46 AM
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this election is not going to be close

I hope you're right, but I can see it being quite close and plausibly losable. Let's say Ohio and Indiana reverted to their normal patterns and go Republican, which I think is probable. Obama is polling very poorly in Pennsylvania right now. If those three move to the R column, then the entire race essentially comes down to winning best of 3 in Florida, Virginia, and North Carolina, and that's more or less a coin flip. Especially if the nominee is a southerner like Perry.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 10:50 AM
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his embrace of homosexuality

Did I miss some big news?


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 10:57 AM
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I SHOULD HOPE NOT.


Posted by: OPINIONATED MICHELLE | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 10:58 AM
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174 would be my fear in an Obama v. pre-talk radio Republican contest. But so far as we've seen, it will be Obama v. self-evident joke Republican. Besides the fact that Obama campaigns like a champ and doesn't make unforced errors, his unholy gift of opponents that implode is holding strong.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 10:58 AM
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Perry should sit out 2012, let some whackjob lose it, and then win 2016 big. He might need to do enough this time so that Village Republicans think it's his 'turn' in 2016.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 11:04 AM
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I'm not that worried about Obama's reelection either. The one thing he did flawlessly over the past four years was run a brilliant presidential campaign. Plus his fundraising is apparently dwarfing the Republican side, and they still have primaries to go.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 11:09 AM
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Somewhat pwned by 177.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 11:10 AM
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175: No. For some reason we receive newsletter emails at work from a couple of Black Christian Networks: they're consistently very upset about the repeal of DADT. Headlines on the order of: Will Obama repent and reconsider his avowed Christian beliefs? (suggestion being that he's not a real Christian). They attend to a number of preachers who disapprove of the Democratic party's openness to gay marriage.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 11:11 AM
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To the extent that they'd actually endorse a Republican? That just makes them seem as disenfranchised as, say, me.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 11:13 AM
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Which is to say, disgruntled but still voting Democrat.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 11:14 AM
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Perry should sit out 2012, let some whackjob lose it, and then win 2016 big.

I've thought, and I think said, before that it's not unreasonable to suppose there are two trains of thought among the Republican PTB: We gotta win this one! OR: We can't win this one, let's wait for 2016 and in the meantime put on a rilly big show in 2012 with someone plausible and impressive but who's totally expendable. I was thinking that could be Romney. Not sure what I'd think if it were Perry.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 11:17 AM
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179: I'm not that worried either, not because I'm confident Obama will win, but because he is doing his best to convince me that it doesn't matter.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 11:18 AM
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182: Yeah, I don't know. They don't seem to say anything about endorsement. They mostly talk about how Obama is letting the black community down economically, so much for having a black President, and DADT, and Democrats and the gays, and self-empowerment through trust in the Lord, and stuff about building strong black families.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 11:23 AM
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Romney campaigning. Obama campaigning. I'll grant you anything you want about how limited voters are, and how this doesn't say whether he's a good president, and how Obama hasn't governed like he campaigns. But if he doesn't have a family scandal, he is going to walk away with 2012.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 11:28 AM
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Afterthought to 184: It's not unlikely that Republicans are seeing 2012 as all about the Senate: gain control of the Senate.

Obama's probably okay for the Presidency IF Democrats get out the vote. Dem voter apathy could be a real problem.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 11:38 AM
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173: Even if it were straightforwardly possible to lay that crisis at his feet (and it isn't AFAICS), Perry is big oil's boy, and it's big oil that's likelier to decide the issue. (Big ag may have Congresscritters in its pocket, but it's big oil that's integral to the second most powerful lobbying group in Washington, and moreover big oil has -- I'm pretty sure -- more money, and a more fundamental place in Republican DNA.)


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 11:46 AM
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187: Romney campaigning. Obama campaigning.

And I'll lay money on this: Romney is irrelevant. Just forget Romney. He ain't getting it.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 11:50 AM
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188: That looking 4 years ahead thing never works. In 1991, Bush the elder looked like such a shoo-in, many Dems thought they'd just wait till 1996.

The economy is likely to be very poor in 2012, and that by itself gives the opposition party a good shot. Who knows what will be in 2016?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 11:53 AM
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And I'll lay money on this

All bets must be paid in platinum coins.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 11:53 AM
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192: No problem, me and Benjamin Franklin Gates have it covered.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 11:55 AM
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Romney campaigning. Obama campaigning.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 11:58 AM
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194, I claim it.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 11:59 AM
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194: I'm a big fan of the legendary Mitt Romney speech when he was addressing a crowd of anti-Castro Cuban exiles and signed off with "Viva la Revolucion!"


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 12:11 PM
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I'm a big fan of the legendary Mitt Romney speech when he was addressing a crowd of anti-Castro Cuban exiles and signed off with "Viva la Revolucion!"

Not exactly.


Posted by: Knecht Ruprecht | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 12:25 PM
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God knows I was dreaming of Obama-Romney last time. But Obama can't convincingly run anything like his 2008 campaign. Remember the Iowa caucus speech? I realize it's always different for an incumbent & he must have some tricks up his sleeve--honestly, though, I have no idea what those speeches will be like.


Posted by: Katherine | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 1:30 PM
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he must have some tricks up his sleeve

He has, as Megan says, piles and piles and piles of cash. Each pile, not to mention the others I haven't even bothered to mention, represents several tricks, I think is his vision for the campaign.

Still and all, I think Megan is wildly overestimating President Obama's chances. If the economy doesn't improve, I suspect he's in for a serious fight for precisely the reasons apo suggests: an ignorant electorate and electoral math. It's hard to imagine Ohio and Indiana going Democratic this time. (Virginia I don't know the first thing about, so I'll keep my mouth shut.) And that will makes things much harder for the president. Coupled with that, people are miserable, which makes them lash out against incumbents (Charlie Cook was on about this recently). And beyond all of that, I think, as others have suggested, the left isn't going to turn out and work for Obama like it did last time. I have all kinds of anecdata to back this up, but none of it really matters* until the Republicans choose their monstrous standard-bearer (who, I agree, Slack, is very likely to be Rick Perry -- in fact, I fear the Perry/Bachmann ticket more than any other).

* My dad, who is to the right of most people here on social issues but far to the left of the median unfogged voter on economic issues, will not vote for Obama next time. My dad, it should be said, helped to raise more than $100k for Obama last time (though dad strongly preferred Senator Clinton). And again, he will not vote for him this time. Like I said, it's anecdata, but I have a bunch of stories like that one. Oh, my dad lives in Ohio and is VERY active in Democratic politics.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 1:41 PM
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I wasn't me who brought up the piles of cash. I brought up the "looks presidential", "has a pact with the devil for weak opponents" and "the opponents we've seen so far are a clownshow".

But we shall know in a year and a few months. Fortunately, I am far too gracious to openly gloat for very long. Perhaps Heebie and I will exchange some tasteful emails, congratulating each other for being so damn right.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 1:49 PM
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the opponents we've seen so far are a clownshow

Why would you think clownishness would be a negative?


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 1:54 PM
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199.last: So Obama v Perry/Bachmann he votes "none of the above"? Or for the freak show?


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 1:55 PM
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I'm beginning to think we need a labor party. Or a "Working Families Party" if that sounds better given the low rate of labor union penetration, assuming the NYS doesn't object to the name being stolen, or the Jobs Now Party, or the People's Popular Front, or whatever. Primarily devoted to organizing (in either the collective bargaining sense or the raising consciousness & funds sense), with enthusiastic endorsement of Dem candidates (or primary candidates) in some cases, 3rd party challenges in a select few, & sitting out/halfhearted endorsements in races where either they can't make a difference or the Democratic candidate is too lousy to go all out for but too much better than the alternative to risk playing spoiler.


Posted by: Katherine | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 1:56 PM
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202: I asked him this very question. He said he'd vote for a third-party candidate if one appealed to him in any way. Or he wouldn't vote at all for the first time in his adult life. He's rather upset that President Obama said, in so many words, that government doesn't (can't?) create jobs and also that he put SS and Medicare cuts on the table as part of his grand bargain. Dad thinks that put a variety of down-ticket Democratic candidates, including Senator Brown in a few years, in an impossible situation. More broadly, dad also thinks that Obama is badly out of his depth in the Oval Office.

There's a part of me that thinks Dad is a bit of a PUMA, but his earlier support for the president suggests that's not the case. I feel like I should add that dad isn't at all upset with Obama about Israel/Palestine. Which is to say, dad isn't a single-issue-voting Jew who hews to the Likkud line. Quite the contrary, actually, as he wishes the president would cut funding to Israel in response to ongoing illegal construction in the settlements.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:03 PM
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Because the people who couldn't stomach voting for Palin aren't going to be able to handle another version of her. Because people are shallow, and want the calm, tall one with the deep voice to be in charge. Because the freakshow energy speaks strongly to the 27%, but is outright unappealing outside the crazies.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:08 PM
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RE: Obama's chances in 2012. I keep thinking of 1991-92, which someone mentioned already. The incumbent president was quite popular. He's a war hero, won two foreign wars and pretty much solved a banking crisis early in his term. Sound familiar? No, Obama isn't a war hero and hasn't actually won any wars.

The best members of the opposition party declined to run, leaving a bunch of clowns. The leading clown is really running for 96, and trying to make himself known. He was previously known only for being a governor of a dysfunctional state and for having given an extraordinarily long and boring speech at the previous Convention. In January 92 he has also become known for having had an affair with a trailer trash type while he was governor. He's also two decades younger than the incumbent and fat and doesn't look or sound at all presidential. The next best clown turns out to have cancer, so the boring, adulterous clown wins the nomination.

By November, the economy sucked (not nearly as badly as it does now), and the clown wins.


Posted by: unimaginative | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:09 PM
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206: There was also the bonus extra third even clownier clown in that election.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:15 PM
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205 is why every Republican candidate (except Bachmann, who I think is a true believer, rather than a grifter like the rest of them) will run as a mainstream moderate in the general election. And the press will allow them to tack to the middle without referring back to the primaries. And the ignorant electorate won't know enough or care enough (beyond being angry about the economy) to figure out who's telling the truth. Seriously, Megan, think up a bet that works for you. If unemployment remains over 8.5%, I'll be happy to bet that Obama either loses or wins a VERY close race. And regardless, good economy or bad, I'm willing to bet that either Romney or Perry is the GOP nominee, and that whichever it is runs as a relative moderate: Romney as a sane businessman who knows how to balance the books, Perry as a folksy Southern populist who just can't stand how the little guy is getting screwed by Washington.

Again, though, all bets are off if the economy improves, in which case I think the president wins reelection in a landslide.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:16 PM
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By November, the economy sucked (not nearly as badly as it does now), and the clown wins.

Clinton carried a lot of baggage, but he was never a clown. He had serious policy chops, even as governor, and he fulfilled the then prevalent Democratic wish-dream of a mostly liberal Southern governor who can win the votes of Southern whites.

One of my rare successes at political prognostication was picking Clinton to win the nomination back in late '91.


Posted by: Knecht Ruprecht | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:18 PM
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far to the left of the median unfogged voter on economic issues

So ... what does this mean, concretely? Favors expropriating the expropriators?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:20 PM
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210: he's a democratic socialist, neb, like everyone else in the family. It's a cross we bear.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:22 PM
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I just like saying "expropriate".


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:24 PM
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Well, not really mom, ever since the Polish socialists seized her family's property, she's had issues with organized socialism. But she's still a Labor kibbutznik, so we leave her alone on May Day.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:24 PM
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212: who doesn't, comrade?


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:24 PM
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Is this the thread wherein I mention that I spent the day in a meeting that included, early on, a brief but heartfelt paean to the free-market-promoting policies of Gen. Augusto Pinochet (with, to be fair, a statement of disapproval w/r/t "some other things that he did")?


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:27 PM
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209: in a non-rare case of supporting doomed campaigns & causes, I wrote--longhand--a letter to Tom Harkin asking how an 8th grader could help.


Posted by: Katherine | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:30 PM
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Seriously, Megan, think up a bet that works for you.

When I win, I want $2T, payable in a single coin.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:34 PM
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And speaking of true believers, grifters and clowns, Boehner doesn't have the votes to pass his plan. And now Cantor has to try to whip more votes for him! Hahahahahahahahahaha!


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:35 PM
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217: I was thinking more along the lines of a Coke at pub quiz. But your way is probably better.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:35 PM
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Or a Coke, with lemon in it.

Speaking of which, I cannot believe they're still talking about patents in the patent thread. Somehow they haven't gotten around to talking about food!


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:38 PM
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But of course now we're left with the Reid plan, which isn't much better than Boehner's, so the joke's on us, isn't it?


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:38 PM
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218: I wonder what happened over the course of the day? Earlier it sounded like it was going to pass.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:44 PM
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222: I think the earlier confidence was posturing on the part of the leadership. I think, further, that once the Club for Growth and RedState lined up against the compromise, it was toast. As fake accent said yesterday, these freshman Republicans haven't yet learned that big money donors mean more to them than lunatics like Erick Erickson do. Put another way, they're true believers who haven't been corrupted yet. Scary stuff.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:48 PM
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At least the Reid plan goes through the end of 2012.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:51 PM
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223 is the reason that the GOP primary winner won't be able to tack towards the middle and run as a moderate Republican. We're not going to see Obama v. a generic Republican in 2012. We're going to see Obama v. crazy-eyes. Which is why Ari is going to owe me a Coke.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 2:54 PM
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E Klein wrote today that whatever passes the house will need 50-100 Democratic votes. What is interesting is that will cost, maybe, Boehner his speakership. "Maybe" because the Speaker is elected by the whole house, and it will be fun to see if Cantor can come up with 219 votes.

I suspect Pelosi will be able to come up with the votes to pass the Reid plan if she only needs 100. If she needs more, well Barney Frank has said he won't vote for no stinking "Super Congress"

I'm with Wafer's dad, and hell will freeze over before I will vote for Obama/


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 3:09 PM
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Jesus, like cats fucking dogs it will be, vote to raise the debt ceiling, with added Catfood II Commission and Balanced Budget Amendment, passed with 115 Dems and 115 Rethugs holding hands and singing kumbaya, respective bases in the Mall with torchs and pitchforks.

It will be an Obama Miracle! Another one!

This puppy's going down.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 3:16 PM
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Oh of course the alternative plan is for Boehner to come up with 30-50 Rethuds out of 250 and Pelosi to get 95% of the Democrats to pass an essentially Republican fucking bill.

That's a nightmare of groveling to S&P Obama.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 3:25 PM
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After swift burial, Congress will have four days to work out a deal to avert the default that Treasury says will begin on August 2. The key sticking point and the must-have for President Obama and Reid is an increase in debt authority of at least $2.7 trillion--enough to last until early 2013. When Reid sent a letter to Boehner on Wednesday signed by all 51 Senate Democrats and the two independents promising to kill his bill, the only reason cited was that it lacked a debt-limit increase past the 2012 election. This is Obama and Reid's irreducible minimum. Democrats cannot and will not back away from it--not for economic or political reasons which, for all Democrats, are tightly intertwined.

Republicans must reconcile themselves to this fact.


Bzzzzt! Wrong. They don't have to reconcile to shit.

Boehner:"Let's go home now."
Press:"What about the debt ceiling."
Boehner:"Jeez, I think I'm gonna cry. WTF do you think we have been doing this week. After a hard struggle, we Republicans passed a bill raising the debt ceiling."
Press:"But the Senate won't pass it."
Boehner:"And your point? That is a Democratic problem for Reid and Obama. I sure hope they save the US Credit Rating and prevent a Depression."

Obama should have come out in January 2011 and said:"I will only sign a clean debt ceiling bill that provides enough money to run thru Jan 2013. I will veto anything else, and if I don't get that clean bill by August 2nd, I will use my constitutional options to fund America's and pay it's debts."

If he had said that, we would have no debt ceiling problems. This is 100% on Obama's shoulders, and he is the only one to blame.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 4:32 PM
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Next up:In the spirit of bipartisanship, Obama hands the "black box" over to the Republican House.

After Cantor and Bachmann send a nuke at Paris, parsimon, who watches Republicans, is outraged at Republicans.

"Worst President Ever" is inadequate to describe an asshole who let these crazies play with the US credit rating.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 4:50 PM
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I only now realized that I am feeling a slight sense of relief that for the moment California's budget problems are not the most fucked-up budget problems in the land. I mean, that was embarrassing. I'm a participant in both California's and the federal budget problems, so it isn't like I'm newly clear of shame or anything. But now, suddenly, I feel green shoots of hope, a gentle dawning of the realization that it isn't just Crazifornia that does this shit. We are not uniquely awful, with our shutting down government and IOU's and recalcitrant fucked-upness.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 5:01 PM
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Which is why Ari is going to owe me a Coke

He was right when I bet him last election, he was pro Obama then, so watch out.


Posted by: CJB | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 5:20 PM
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So maybe I shouldn't bet him $2T.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 5:50 PM
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In the end, bob, I suppose you should be pleased. There seems to be universal agreement among the ruling classes that we need to heighten the fuck out of the contradictions.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 6:12 PM
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IF YOU ARI $2, THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM. IF YOU OWE ARI $2 TRILLION, THAT'S ARI'S PROBLEM.


Posted by: OPINIONATED JOHN PAUL GETTY | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 6:15 PM
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ADD 'OWE'


Posted by: OPINIONATED GETTY AGAIN | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 6:16 PM
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Now get ready, I'm J.P. Getty
I am tearing shit up like confetti
My money last longer than Eveready
Ain't nothing petty about cash I never lose
And all about those rebellions, and riots and mishaps
I got the po'-po's for their daily pimp slap
The motherfucker gangsta, rolling Fleetwood Caddy
I'm that mack ass already pimped his daddy
Lay you out like linoleum floors
I'm getting rich off petroleum wars
Controlling you whores, making you eat Top Ramen
While I eat shrimp, y'all motherfuckas is simps
I'm just a pimp


Posted by: JOHN PAUL GETTY | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 6:32 PM
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Damn it feels good to be a Getty.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 6:42 PM
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No vote tonight after all. Do you think Boehner's crying?


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 7:28 PM
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It's Tear party vs. Tea Party.

Also, I guess after being so wrong about Iraq - I didn't believe people were stupid enough to start that war - I've gone the other way and think they're so stupid that default is basically inevitable. So I had a hard time believing there was going to be a vote today, though all the reports sounded like it was a real possibility. Given that the plans on the table sound so bad, it's hard to figure out what outcome to support, even though rationally it seems clear that in the near term default is the worst.

I retain enough optimism to think that the outcome of a real instead of looming crisis could be to make taxes possible again: that is, to govern with the possibility of raising or lower taxes, cutting or raising spending, and providing one miniature American flag for every household to display proudly or to burn.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 7:42 PM
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And money is on the move.

(Link is to search result because a click-through from google should give you the article; a direct link gets you the paywall.)


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 07-28-11 7:48 PM
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205: look, research has been done on this. By researchers. Fundraising doesn't matter*. Campaigning doesn't matter*. Winning wars doesn't matter*. Which state you're from doesn't matter. What matters in deciding US presidential elections is one thing: how is the economy doing? If the economy is going well, congratulations, it's Morning in America. If it's not, you're Carter.


*Absent really colossal differences here between the two candidates.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:48 AM
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Some would say that the difference between Obama and Bachmann, which is what Megan was talking about at 205, is colossal. Obama is a general issue right wing machine politician; Bachmann is the sort of person you make an effort not to be alone in a room with. Obama would win comfortably. On a 50% turnout.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:55 AM
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*Absent really colossal differences here between the two candidates.

Fortunately, that's the situation we are going to be in.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:26 AM
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244: Not if Romney is the nominee. And I'm not as confident as DS that he can't win the nomination.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:28 AM
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245: He's certainly much much more likely than Bachmann.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:31 AM
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245: I think we've touched on this before and I agree. I'd guess his chance of winning is higher than any other individual candidate.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:32 AM
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244: that phrase "colossal differences" only refers to funding, campaigning and winning wars, and I very much doubt that there will be really colossal differences between Obama and the Republican nominee on any of those counts. I don't mean "colossal differences" in ability or personality or intelligence.

OK, if they nominate Palin, her campaign will self-destruct (same with Gingrich). And if they nominate Paul he won't be able to get any money. But they won't, they'll nominate Romney or Perry or someone, and those are people who can run a reasonable (ie non self destructive) campaign and raise a reasonable campaign chest.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:36 AM
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As for the "winning wars" thing, there is really only downside here. Wars aren't won by evacuations; Obama's not getting any points for pulling the troops out of Iraq, and if Qassem Suleimani (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/28/qassem-suleimani-iran-iraq-influence) then pops up as shadow president in Baghdad in August 2012, he is doomed.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:39 AM
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pops up as shadow president in Baghdad in August 2012, he is doomed

Maybe, but I'm skeptical. I believe most Americans don't give a good goddamn who's in charge of any given foreign country, except when we're playing the "leader X is teh new hitler!!!1!!" game. Having already played it in Iraq, people just want to be able to ignore it again.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:50 AM
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250 is correct.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:54 AM
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My default reaction to any new information is to see if I can think up a reason that I can ignore it.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 8:02 AM
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245: Romney is a godawful campaigner whose status as a cultist and supposed closet socialist would divide his own ranks. Megan is 100% right to feel as confident as she does if Romney is the likely nominee, which is precisely why he isn't.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 8:44 AM
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197: Drat. My version was better. Still.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 9:16 AM
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250: actually you may be right on that one. As long as the new president isn't actually called "SAddam Hussein", it's probably OK.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 9:24 AM
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Americans would never tolerate a leader with "Hussein" in his name.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 9:33 AM
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This post from Kleiman gets at Perry's problem.

It seemed like quite a shrewd move for the man who now seems - as the sole candidate acceptable to the plutocrats, the theocrats, and the teahdis - very likely to be the Republican nominee for President in 2012.

Then he goes on to say, no no, the Tea Party brought him to heel, Perry can't be any flavor of moderate so he's unelectable. That's the same problem I saw in that water project article. Only the water project article is way more extreme. Voting for water projects in a drought is a core Republican value. Perry got his chain yanked for making a Republican state's right statement, which is shocking enough but maybe understandable because it was decent to gay people. But the Tea Party wouldn't let him be a solid right, environment destroying Republican who builds water projects either. He can't win plutocrats like that, nevermind the moderates and centrists. So long as the Tea Party is picking candidates, Obama has nothing to fear.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 10:13 AM
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257: I found myself saying this same thing after another article on Perry -- with TNR imprimatur -- on a different thread. How is it that fifty years on, people still haven't figured out how the conservative movement works?

What Perry is doing is how the conservative movement works. He doesn't have a "flip-flop" problem with the remark Kleiman is zeroing in on, because he carefully framed the original remark as being first and foremost about "states' rights" and has framed his further thoughts as elaborations on that, complete with some Southern-friendly dogwhistle politics about how they want a "federal marriage amendment" as protection against those big bossy states like New York pushing their definitions of marriage on scrappy underdog states like Texas. There is nothing there that hasn't been at the core of movementarian politics -- and movement success -- since Nixon invented that particular dance. You cannot rule out someone like Perry by saying "Aha! I have caught you in an apparent logical fallacy!" It just doesn't work that way. The conservative movement runs on tribalism, not argumentative coherency; that's just a basic feature of Republican conservatism, it's nothing the Tea Party invented.

And I still don't see how the water projects article is supposed to sink Perry either, since a) the crisis looks to be a fairly knotty problem in the Texas legislature that's hard to pin on either Perry or the Tea Party, and b) the relevant plutocrats in Texas are big oil, not big ag.

It would be lovely to rule Rick Perry out. But I see too much wishful non-thinking going on about his candidacy.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 12:03 PM
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I started to worry that his chances were good when I heard him described as a moron.


Posted by: Eggplant | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 12:07 PM
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how the water projects article is supposed to sink Perry either

It tells me the Tea Party and the biggest priorities of Republicans are at odds and a politician can't score both. Without both, no politician can challenge Obama.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 12:14 PM
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Am I understanding correctly that the Republicans are pushing for the "enforcement mechanisms" that kick in if the parties are unable to agree on later deficit reductions to consist entirely of spending cuts? So, the deal they're offering is, "we'll attempt to negotiate with you to reach an agreement on deficit reduction, and if we're unable to reach an agreement then the result will be that we get everything we want, and you get nothing?"

Please tell me I'm misunderstanding this, because that sounds absurd. Why would anyone take this seriously? Or even treat it as being offered in good faith?


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 12:18 PM
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260:We'll see. Then Romney should get the nom, huh?

Once in a Blue Moon the propertarians or elites grab on to the coattails of the populists instead of using them. Early 30s Germany.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 12:33 PM
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260: I get that, I just don't know how you're getting it out of that story. I look at that story and I see: 1) the unending balanced-budget mantra interfering with fee dispersals (but that stuff is far from being just a "Tea Party" thing, and really is a core value of the plutocrats, or at any rate a large share of them); and 2) very complicated wrangles over how new water projects should be constituted (with mixed feelings or outright opposition from across what passes for the Texan political spectrum -- including the agricultural sector -- toward flooding more land by just building new dams and reservoirs, and a range of different takes on conservation, the need to prioritize watersheds and so on). So I don't see that there are two simply-identified sides of the issue that would be "splitting" some unified bloc of "Tea Party interests" from moneyed interests even if we granted that those could be simply identified as different things (which I don't).


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 12:35 PM
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262.2: They're certainly getting more than they bargained with their Tea Party freshmen in the House.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 12:36 PM
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It tells me the Tea Party and the biggest priorities of Republicans are at odds and a politician can't score both. Without both, no politician can challenge Obama.

With the economy going the way it is, any politician can challenge Obama. Even Bachmann. Guys, Q1 GDP was just revised downards by a full 1.5% (annualised). Obama will be lucky if unemployment is below 9% by election time, let alone 8%.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 12:40 PM
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a politician can't score both. Without both, no politician can challenge Obama.

You're conflating primary dynamics with general election dynamics. The wings may be split during the primaries, but *somebody* is going to come out of the nominating process and that somebody is still going to have the GOP close ranks behind them. In a general election, any Republican on the ballot will be able to get both.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 12:47 PM
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The only scenario that would justify Megan's level of confidence would be something like Romney winning the nomination and Bachmann deciding to run as a third-party "Tea Party" candidate. Which isn't going to happen.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 12:52 PM
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Boehner's not getting both today. The Tea Party is fucking crazy, and it is too fucking crazy to coexist with Republicans, as we witness at this very moment in DC. Either the plutocrats (big ag, in my water story) will win and send someone who could challenge Obama, in which case the crazy 27% will defect, or the Tea Party will win and send Bachman up against Obama and the plutocrats will stay home.

I understand the distinction between the general and the primary election, but don't think your premise of closed ranks is going to hold.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 12:59 PM
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in which case the crazy 27% will defect

Heh. Oh, wait, you're not kidding, are you?


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:00 PM
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Because... the Tea Party is actually costing the plutocrats money (no new water project, willing to crash the economy over debt ceiling, and I'm sure there will be more). Not because of ideology.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:01 PM
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Seriously, Megan, your reading of the water projects story is predicated on the assumption that a) an especially dim portion of the electorate will understand a complicated (and to my mind not especially ironclad) series of facts and b) that after understanding the relationship between those facts they will then turn on one of their own. The former seems almost impossibly far-fetched. And the latter will only happen, as urple says, if Bachmann runs as a third party candidate.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:03 PM
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Anyway, I want you to be right. But political history and political science both suggest that unless the economy turns around, this election will be very close. And no matter how divided the Republican Party may be come next year, it will surely pull together to try to beat President Obama.

Also, I have more than half a hunch that this debt ceiling stuff will be largely forgotten in a few months. (Not if it's not resolved, of course, but it will be. And then people will forget about it, as they do about crises that don't actually materialize.)


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:07 PM
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268: I almost think you need to re-look at that water projects story. I've gone through it several times and it just isn't saying at all what you think it says AFAICT.

I think you're right, in general, that Tea Party craziness represents a huge problem for the cohesion ot the GOP, especially inasmuch as the rookie Tea Partiers plainly don't know enough to know when the moneyed interests that back them want them to treat their supposed positions as actual or... figurative. Whether that's an intractable problem for the GOP remains to be seen. But so far as its having already foredoomed Rick Perry, I think you're just wrong as of now.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:10 PM
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an especially dim portion of the electorate will understand a complicated (and to my mind not especially ironclad) series of facts

Nope. The portion of the electorate that has to understand that the Texas government, Republican all through, couldn't deliver on a water project because of Tea Party people is not dim. Those are the Plutocrats. Here in California, they'd be Big Ag, and they fly Feinstein out for dinner in their private jets. They are very savvy. It is not farfetched at all that they can figure out a chain of events that threatens their own pocketbook, especially when the Tea Party is being as obvious as it is. That's the moderate boundary.

On the Tea Party boundary, they see traditional Republicans as sell-outs who compromise, even as those Republicans are doing very Republican things, like state's rights, water projects, farm subsidies and not crashing the entire economy. I noticed this in the water project story, but it is consistent across the other stories, too. Grover Norquist's monster is finding Republicans are not pure enough.

One or the other of those boundaries will yield, even in the general election, even in the down economy. Besides that, Obama is an incumbent who will run a beautiful campaign. He's not going to lose this one, short of a personal sex scandal.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:14 PM
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Megan, I understood your point. But even if I grant you that swing-voting plutocrats (because entrenched Republican plutocrats from Texas will never vote for a Democrat -- not ever) are smart (and I don't grant that point about any subset of swing voters), and we're talking about people voting their economic interests, you should probably consider that they believe that they stand to lose more in taxes if a Democrat is elected.

As for President Obama, if enough people believe that the country is heading in the wrong direction (if, in other words, the so-called misery index is high enough), his incumbency will work against him. Anyway, let's get one thing straight: our bet isn't that he loses. You said that he'd walk away with the election, that nobody should worry about it, that it's in the bag. And you're wrong. I like the Coke from Mexico, by the way, and Meyer lemons.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:28 PM
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Honestly, 2012 is starting to look too crazy to predict. I mean 1932, 1968, 1800, 1860 I mean really fucking crazy. As in Global economy crashes, ME explodes, Tea Party takes over Repubs, Obama implements Simpson Bowles x 3 and loses his base, two tiny irritating headline-grabbing wing parties, volcanoes and earthquakes, polar bears invading black swans darken the skies.

There will be nothing left for Obama to win, if the election actually comes off. Double his SS guard. Triple it.

I know y'all think I'm crazy, but crazy is actually better for times like this. The zeitgeist and weltanschauung catches up with us. When the rational starts feeling inadequate...whatever Hunter said.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:29 PM
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ME explodes

Maine explodes? MobileMe explodes?


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:32 PM
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He's not going to lose this one, short of a personal sex scandal.

Dragging the conversation into the gutter, and not that I know anything at all, but I've seen sidelong references implying that Obama is known to have some history of infidelity. Which could totally mix things up, if something broke.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:32 PM
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ME Magazine?


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:32 PM
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If the economy is heading back into recession, I don't see how Obama wins, no matter who the Republicans nominate. I can see the plutocrats sticking the shiv into Bachmann before the primaries, but after that the only way the Republican loses is if they lose Roger Ailes. Once it's down to Democrat versus Republican, in a sufficiently down economy it doesn't matter what the plutocrats want.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:32 PM
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Yep, and that's still the bet. He's going to walk away with it. What kinda spread does that mean? More than 52%?

Hee. My dad has Meyer lemon trees. Would you take twenty or thirty pounds of lemons no matter who buys the Coke? Since you're in Davis, you probably have the same situation.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:33 PM
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I've seen sidelong references implying that Obama is known to have some history of infidelity

Where? I haven't seen these. Not that it would shock me that it's happened, but it sort of would shock me that it hadn't been trumpted more loudly.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:34 PM
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trumpeted


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:35 PM
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In response to 280, it's possible that even if Rick Perry or another superficially appealing person gets nominated, the plutocrats could just decide they love Obama so much that they pay for ads to turn Perry into a laughingstock like they traditionally do for Democrats. This is what we call the "Nobody wins" scenario.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:35 PM
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Obama is known to have some history of infidelity

I shouldn't be naive, but that would actually make me sad.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:36 PM
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Did he admit it in one of his books?


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:37 PM
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Middle East

I promised not to talk about it.

But a third carrier group is moving off the Iran coast, and Netanyahu just fired his entire intelligence team. Sept-Oct. Just sayin.

Two regional wing parties, and Obama getting a plurality of 240 e-votes would be fun. Gotta go back to that 1886 law and think about a divided Congress ratsifying electors.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:40 PM
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I haven't seen more than implications, and I couldn't find them offhand. The only reason I'd take it at all seriously is that I was ignoring murmurs about Edwards, and turned out I was wrong about that.

Personally, I don't give a damn, but I think a sex scandal is a not-vanishingly unlikely possibility.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:44 PM
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US defaults => Greece defs, Ireland, Port, SP, Italy go down => wag the dog like a puppy greeting bacon.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:46 PM
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Personally, I don't give a damn, but I think a sex scandal is a not-vanishingly unlikely possibility.

Well, but it never is, is it? I was curious if you'd actually seen anything credible that made you think it was less vanishingly unlikely in Obama's case than in the case of any other run-of-the-mill national politician.


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:47 PM
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This?


Posted by: Disingenuous Bastard | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:52 PM
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I assume he's had an affair or more than one. I also assume the GOP slime machine is aggressively trying to get proof so they can deploy it at the critical moment in the 2012 election cycle. I don't care because I don't expect perfection from anyone and because the only thing that will affect the election results is the economy.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:52 PM
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the only thing that will affect the election results is the economy.

I'm no expert, but this seems to me like it's becoming conventional wisdom around here, and it's not really accurate. Or at least Nate Silver doesn't think so.

It's more like "about half of what usually affects the election results is the economy," which is pretty different.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 1:58 PM
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...because the only thing that will affect the election results is the economy.

People need to read Taleb and get imaginative.

What if Obama goes to (new) war?

What if a nuke blows in Chicago, Obama says it has Iranian fingerprints all over it? You gonna believe him, all the way to total war?

Somebody way above asked what happens when elites "heighten the contradictions?"

Sheeeet, we all know what happens when plutocrats get nervous don't we?


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 2:00 PM
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293 was me. The linked Nate Silver piece is really worth reading.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 2:00 PM
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Yggles posted yesterday a piece laughing at Norman Angell, but most people live in the world with rational expectations and a guardian Angell.

I live in the nightmare of history and the madness of crowds and popular delusions.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 2:07 PM
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I read that Silver piece and quite liked it. And for what it's worth, I don't think it's only the economy that matters. But it does matter more than any other foreseeable variable, which is why I'm weighting it so heavily in my betting strategy. Also, if President Obama starts another war of choice in the Middle East, I suspect that would help his reelection chances. But if pictures of him praying at the Dome of the Rock leak, that might hurt him. Regardless, in my eternal quest for the perfect lemon coke, I'm not worrying about either of those October surprises -- or, for that matter, a sex scandal. Anything can happen. Something surely will. But there's no point wasting my time trying to anticipate the arrival of black swans. Those fuckers will migrate when they migrate.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 2:20 PM
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290: I googled, and I think I was probably remembering references to this story. Enquirer, some campaign staffer, no proof, story didn't take off.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 2:21 PM
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Nothing ever came of the Vera Baker stories. That's not the same as saying that there was nothing to them, of course.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 2:24 PM
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Yeah, after the way I guessed wrong on Edwards I'm just thinking smoke, perceptible chance of fire. I don't know that that's enough to bring it above the baseline "anyone could have a sex scandal anytime."


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 2:26 PM
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She doesn't have a wikipedia page, so you couldn't have had an affair with anybody important.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 2:28 PM
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Regardless, in my eternal quest for the perfect lemon coke to give to Megan...

Thanks, darlin'. I'm looking forward to it.


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 2:36 PM
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274: On the Tea Party boundary, they see traditional Republicans as sell-outs who compromise, even as those Republicans are doing very Republican things, like state's rights, water projects

Look, water projects may be a California Republican thing, I could buy that. But a key part of the water projects story which you yourself linked to is that a key constituency opposing the building of more dams is ranchers, the agricultural sector that's supposed to be driving this dynamic you're talking about. Your read of that story is just completely wrong. Your attempt to portray it as Tea Party vs. establishment is just wrong. Same with the story Kleiman quoted; whatever new dynamics the Tea Party has injected, the venerable tradition of stretching the "states' rights" concept into hypocritical contortion is not new, not a Tea Party innovation and not a problem for Perry.

That the Tea Partiers have been a disaster for the GOP in Congress is evident, but it's way premature to conclude that this means an irrecoverable split in the conservative vote, or conservative fundraising. And it's simply wishful thinking to say that has already doomed Perry's chances at the nomination, or at beating Obama if he wins it.

291: I thought the question was "something credible." Fox hasn't even touched that one.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 2:36 PM
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Did we agree on the spread?


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 2:37 PM
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our bet isn't that he loses.

It is for me, and has been since before the Democatic primary was decided. This president, whoever it was, was always a one-termer.


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 2:37 PM
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303.2 "if he wins it" s/b "when he wins it"


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 2:37 PM
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Boehner just gave a dissociative speech. Yikes.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 2:46 PM
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DS: I think we understand the respective positions pretty well. We'll find out in an incredibly long and repetitive 15 months how it shakes out.

VW: I don't remember us talking about the governor's race here. How were your Brown/Whitman predictions?


Posted by: Megan | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 2:51 PM
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How were your Brown/Whitman predictions?

Within a percentage point. But that was luck. I mean, I never considered Whitman anything like a threat to Brown, even though I personally didn't (and don't) find Brown appealing in any way. Still, using some polling data that I thought was reasonable, I pretty much guessed about the spread.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 2:56 PM
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Also, I was caught off guard by the size of President Obama's win the last go round. I was pretty sure he'd lose Florida and Indiana (I still can't believe he won there) and not at all confident that he'd win North Carolina. So, it's not like I'm Nate Silver in waiting.


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 3:00 PM
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I was surprised that Obama won North Carolina, but I've been even more surprised at the current polling that indicates he's actually improved his standing here since then.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 3:05 PM
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311: have the state's demographics shifted in the last three years, apo?


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 3:07 PM
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I mean, has the Research Triangle continued to grow faster than the rest of the state?


Posted by: Von Wafer | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 3:07 PM
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The Triangle is growing faster than most of the rest of the country, even. And there has been a real explosion in the Latino population.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 3:24 PM
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But that's more of a long-term trend than the past 3 years. NC is probably a battleground state for the foreseeable future.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 3:30 PM
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So, Boehner got 218. Senate can craft a substitute that'll get 60 votes, and that can come back to the House for Bob's 170 Dems plus 50 Reps.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 3:37 PM
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I'm skeptical of Nate Silver's out of sample test. He extended the sample to pre-WW2 elections, but the data quality for economics data pre-WW2 is worse. If you have an independent variable with measurement error, you end up underestimating the size of the effect. So the fact that he finds a smaller effect pre-WW2 is not that surprising.

Also, in his extra data, you see gigantic swings the economy, so he's included observations that are basically all outliers from the point of view of post-WW2. I mean, was there really any chance that Hoover was only going to get 15% of the vote in 1932? Was there any chance that FDR was going to get 67% of the vote in 1944, or 77% of the vote in 1936?


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 3:39 PM
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316:Do we feel sorry for the Rep who has to answer his primary opponent's question about voting against 75% of his caucus?


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 4:13 PM
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I'm wondering to what extent changes in campaign finance laws after Citizens United change the big-money dynamic we're used to. This is a vague thought (just thought of it a couple of hours ago!) so bear with me.

Normally we, or at least I, tend to think that no candidate too wacked out for establishment, traditional plutocrats ultimately stands a chance: the latter simply won't give him or her substantial enough campaign donations to support a viable election run unless he or she moderates his/her positions suitably. But one thing we observed in the 2010 midterms was Big Tea Party money -- via e.g. American Crossroads/Crossroads GPS -- backing silly candidates (like Christine O'Donnell), such that some of these silly candidates won primaries against establishment Republican figures. In some cases, the Tea Party candidate actually won against the Dem (I'm thinking Rand Paul, though I'm honestly not sure where his money came from).

Tea Partiers were essentially able to say to establishmentarians: s'okay, we don't need your money, got sources of our own.

?? I'm finding it difficult to believe that Crossroads GPS and like organizations (whoever they are) really have enough funds to rival those available from traditional Big Money, so this is probably a non-starter.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 4:22 PM
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318 cont: Now you may sat that Boehner can find 50 Reps who will run unopposed but then I ask if those are really the more moderate Republicans? Are the unopposed more likely to be the guys, maybe like Peter King, who have seniority and are up for committee assignments? Do they want to help out the doomed Boehner and infuriate Cantor?

How would we feel about Democrats...oh wait, I remember the ACA vote. We, well not we, hated hated loathed those Democrats who would submit to the will of ObamaLieberman.

If you are not enjoying the hell out of this, you don't like politics as spectator sport. It is always horrible, and it is always played with innocent lives on the table.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 4:42 PM
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Digby

The answer at this point is to punt on all negotiations and have the president use the 14th Amendment remedy. It would be risky, of course. After all, the market Gods with the apt names of "Standard" and "Poors" (helped by the centrist Dem eunuchs who serve at their pleasure) have joined the Tea Party and decreed there must be horrifying, painful austerity. But all the backroom deals on the table are so bad that it is preferable at this point to take a chance with some bold leadership than go through with any of them.

As I said, I don't think this will happen. I think Democrats will pass this bill and the Democratic President will sign it. And honestly, I'm not sure there's a worse outcome.

and Digby ..who deserves a Pulitzer for honesty

Right. Reid will have to get "several Republicans to co-operate." And then Boehner is going to have to decide between risking his speakership by essentially having the President and Pelosi pass the final hideous piece of garbage that emerges(with just enough Republicans to get it over the line) or default. I still don't see how the debt ceiling gets raised by the congress any other way.

What a mess. I think it's time to start tippling.

Right. Reid and Obama get 10% of their opponents for the "reasonable compromise" and Boehner is the monster if he can't get 25% of his caucus to vote for something that is a 90% Democratic Bill.

Like I said, not much honesty around.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 4:52 PM
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Also heard in the primaries:

"But 40 Republican Senators also voted against the Reid bill!"

Fuck these guys. Like I said, if I'm Boehner, I send the troops home. He passed a debt ceiling raise.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 4:56 PM
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I know y'all think I'm crazy, but crazy is actually better for times like this. The zeitgeist and weltanschauung catches up with us. When the rational starts feeling inadequate...whatever Hunter said.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

bob speaks for me in this thread. I have stopped trying to guess when this country and planet are going to hit bottom.

The nuts have discovered a negative feedback loop. The worse things get, the more people turn to nuts for answers. The more people turn to nuts for answers, the worse things get.

In the next presidential election, I will support a candidate more rightwing than I ever imagined I could support. Still, Bachmann or Perry or any other Republican could win.

And 10 years from now, could I find myself voting for someone to the right of Bachmann or Perry? Yes, I could. I hope it doesn't come to that, but 30 years after the election of Reagan, we still haven't seen the bottom, and we have no idea where the bottom is.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 5:09 PM
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Oh, the latest from FDL is that Republican Senators promise to allow cloture so that zero, fucking zero Republican Senators have to vote for the Reid Bill. Or maybe a couple so Nelson and Landrieux can vote no.

Oh god fucking no. If I'm Boehner, I am not going to cut my own throat for Olympia fucking Snow.

Boehner should tell Reid to get 20 Republican ayes or Boehner will recess the house.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 5:21 PM
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we still haven't seen the bottom, and we have no idea where the bottom is.

That's what I kept saying through Underworld.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 5:23 PM
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319: ?? I'm finding it difficult to believe that Crossroads GPS and like organizations (whoever they are) really have enough funds to rival those available from traditional Big Money, so this is probably a non-starter.

Crossroads GPS and like organizations are the funds available from traditional Big Money. The Koch Brothers and their Super PAC are the model.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 5:29 PM
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Well, I'm going to continue with my campaign finance theme: it used to be that wingnuts could be controlled -- bought off -- though promises of earmarks, or threats of withdrawal of financial support in their next reelection campaign, or similar. This isn't the case any more. Now we have to *reason* with them!

I propose that all new members of Congress be required to take a basic governmental/financial literacy course: they will be walked through the nature of the federal budget, which will point out that only some 12% (I believe) of the budget is so-called discretionary spending. It will point out the percentage of the budget that goes to foreign aid. It will emphasize the numerous things that the federal government actually *does* -- perhaps there will be a homework assignment in which members list the means by which they themselves or their family members have taken advantage of federal programs. It will discuss the fact that not all things can be done by the private sector or even by individual states. It will include a section on the interstate commerce clause.

More soberly, I was really struck today by this from James Fallows' Atlantic piece:

A Republican demand for $16 million in cuts from the FAA budget (plus some anti-union provisions) has led to an FAA shutdown that has in turn, as the NY Times reports, led to a $25 million per day loss in fees the airlines paid to the FAA. That is, zealotry on this point has already cost the government more than ten times as much as the cuts would have saved.

Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 5:36 PM
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326: Crossroads GPS and like organizations are the funds available from traditional Big Money.

I'm not sure about this. I'd have to poke around a lot more to be confident of any of this, but Crossroads is Dick Armey's outfit, and he's being mavericky, total Tea Party. I don't know how welcome he is on Wall Street, say. But I don't know where his money comes from.

There's a lot of crossover between traditional Big Money and the Tea Party over a dedication to no new taxes, which muddies the waters, but once the Tea Party moves from an anti-tax stance to a demand for a balanced budget amendment and a refusal to raise the debt ceiling (even Grover Norquist doesn't go that far), traditional Big Money has a problem.

I don't know. Establishment money wants to use the Tea Party to regain power, but not if it can't control them. Obviously. The shifting alliances have become dizzying: where does the US Chamber of Commerce stand at any given time? Not with the Tea Party, I don't think.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 5:48 PM
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328.1: Crossorads is backed almost entirely by billionaires. The Tea Partiers were meant to be useful rubes for the GOP's moneyed base, full stop.

Of course it hasn't fully stopped there, because most of them apparently don't understand that parts of the script they've been given were meant to be mere posturing, not literal action. But there's no question about whose interests they were supposed to be representing.

What I suspect will happen is that some these candidates will get a stern talking-to when all this business is over, and get thoroughly disabused of the notion that they are there to be Mr. Smith in Washington. The conservative machine is too disciplined not to try to rein in the kind of insubordination that Boehner's experienced. Whether this works, well... who knows. The beauty of the Tea Party was apparently going to be that the rubes really thought they were representing a "grass roots" cause. If it has to subside back into something that looks just like politics as usual, then as an attempt to capture, channel (and most importantly, turn aside) popular discontent will probably be a failure.

Probably. Maybe. The American electorate has already plumbed depths of servility and self-abnegation I thought impossible, so maybe not.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 6:19 PM
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325: if you'd actually seen Underworld you'd know precisely where the bottom is. skin tight vinyl does wonders for identification purposes.


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 6:27 PM
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330: I suppose you know where it is, but you don't get to see it until the sequel.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 6:30 PM
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I saw something nasty in the woodshed!


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 6:34 PM
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I think it was in an empty trailer in an abandoned machine shop.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 6:35 PM
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Cold Comfort Farm


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 6:39 PM
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You don't get to see any of her bottom in that.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 6:41 PM
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I honestly don't remember any bottom in the other franchise, actually. (really Bonsaisue, I dont!) .


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 6:45 PM
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329.1: Okay. Thanks for looking that up; for some weird reason I didn't have Rove's name attached to American Crossroads. I'll mildly observe that the gathered monies of 3 billionaires doesn't equal the gathered influence of hedge fund managers or whatever. Crossroads still seem like outliers (with money, granted) whose service was appreciated to rouse some rabble. It's hard to say how much staying power they have.

Agreed about the Tea Party not understanding the script, of course.

On Rick Perry, I muse that he's currently being felt out, as it were, for how well he can follow the script, how pliable he is. He doesn't strike me as a true believer in the way Bachmann is; maybe he could be another George W. Bush. He could bring the Tea Party stylee votes, he'd theoretically capture the south just because, but he'd follow orders. We'd really need to see more of him to know.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 6:47 PM
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We'd really need to see more of him to know.

Maybe his bottom is in Underworld IV: Like We Have A New Idea.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 6:50 PM
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Underworld IV: The New Confederacy?


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 6:55 PM
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Underworld V: Teaparty with the Vampire


Posted by: Turgid Jacobian | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 6:58 PM
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I thought you guys were talking about Don Delillo's Underworld, which I hadn't thought had been made into a movie, so I was confused, since I read that novel a while ago and don't remember much of it.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:01 PM
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Black Box of the Senate acted mysteriously tonight. Something about Reid wanting an up-or-down vote, no cloture vote, so cloture won't get voted til Tuesday? That's the 2nd. McConnell confused the hell out of me.

Reid & McConnell aren't talking? McConnell will only negotiate with Obama?

Could be Reid & Obama want to make sure it is the last minute, that default is happening and the markets are crashing, before they hand a bill to Boehner/Pelosi.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:07 PM
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You can't see a bottom in a novel, but if the writer is good you can picture it in your mind with so much clarity it's like you're ogling a real bottom.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:07 PM
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Don de Lillo's Underworld was overflowing with ass. It was gluteus to the maximus. At least that's how I choose to remember it.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:08 PM
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I thought it was about baseball.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:10 PM
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don't remember much of it.

My memory goes something like: baseball baseball, artist painting planes in the desert, J. Edgar Hoover, boredom boredom baseball? five hundred more pages.

Actually I think I liked it at the time. I was on a big DeLillo kick. It all seems pretty misguided in retrospect.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:12 PM
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346 speaks for me. Baseball, baseball etc. I'd forgotten about the artist painting planes in the desert, but yeah. I liked DeLillo's White Noise quite a bit, which led me on a brief DeLillo kick.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:18 PM
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You can't see a bottom in a novel, but if the writer is good you can picture it in your mind with so much clarity it's like you're ogling a real bottom.

"You have never really seen an ass until you have seen two sunburned asses on a sandbar in the middle of a river. Nearly all the rest of the body seems to have evaporated. The body is a large red ass about to blister, with hair on one end of it for a head and feet attached to the other end for legs."


Posted by: OPINIONATED GUY WHO WROTE "A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT" | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:20 PM
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And people without blister fetishes can do it.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:39 PM
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345: I thought it was about baseball.

Well, yes. A sport in which the posterior figures prominently. It's all on a continuum.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:42 PM
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Baseball players tend to have big butts (at least in my memory), so ... oh. Yes, I see.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:45 PM
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The Tea Partiers were meant to be useful rubes for the GOP's moneyed base, full stop.

Much of the GOP's moneyed base consists of your "rubes." Rich people just aren't as smart as you and many genuinely intelligent elite conservatives think they are.



Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:46 PM
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I mean, it's probably just their outfits that make it look that way. Um.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:46 PM
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They call them PR firms, not outfits.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 7:59 PM
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To further elaborate on 352, it's not just that Wall Street doesn't back the Tea Party; it's that Wall Street backs Obama.

The sensible, greedhead Wall Street is relatively weak in the Republican Party, hence the current debate over the debt ceiling. The nutty burn-it-all-down money is with the Tea Party. And there's a lot of that money.


Posted by: politicalfootball | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 8:04 PM
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The nutty burn-it-all-down money is with the Tea Party.

The hearts wants what the heart wants.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 8:09 PM
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Main things I remember about Underworld:

Baseball baseball Bobby Thomson then Lenny Bruce's stand-up. Also the main story goes backwards.


Posted by: Tom Scudder | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 8:24 PM
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The GOP big money people are like the sorcerer who, having called forth the powers of darkness, is no longer able to control them.

Some people think the balanced budged amendment stuff today was just upping the ante, but I wouldn't be surprised if today was the first day the Tea Partiers actually learned how the amendment process works.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 8:26 PM
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I had no idea that "Underworld" the novel was an 800 page doorstop. I read the last word, so I assume it had a happy ending.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 8:34 PM
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My wife has a copy on the shelf where she puts books I'll never read but will feel bad about not reading. Chabon, DFW, and Franzen are also there.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 8:38 PM
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Twitter is starting on the debt ceiling again. Reid proposed more cuts and tacos every tuesday.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 8:42 PM
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342 -- Cloture votes require a whole long notice period. Motion to table is simple majority.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 8:50 PM
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It's like the Senate is designed to stop things from happening.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 8:54 PM
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360: The big difference between DFW and the others is that he is really really funny.

355: When I think Tea Party big money, I think "Guy who owns a chain of car dealerships." When I think establishment Republican money, I think "Banker."

Guys who own car dealerships* have a fuck of a lot of money, even if they aren't in "I don't know how many houses I own" territory. Also, there are a lot of more of those fuckers in the Republican party than there are establishment bankers. It is a bizarre sort of people power.

*The tea partier who owns the Honda dealership near us is, well, a piece of work.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 9:17 PM
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360: Chabon is there? Get him down and read him. He's very readable. You won't regret it.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 9:39 PM
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352: Much of the GOP's moneyed base consists of your "rubes."

To a point, inasmuch as they're genuinely people who think libertarian economics and politics are awesome and will lead to good things. Whether there's that much of that base that genuinely believes an American credit default would be no big deal is more questionable. I tend to think maybe not, but who knows.

364.2: The Tea Party big money seems to be mostly oil wealth (that's what Koch Industries ultimately is) and real estate (a big chunk of American Crossroads' top dollars), though. I'm sure car dealerships are represented, too, but I doubt many of those are the billionaire base.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 9:46 PM
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Playing catchup, I think that Megan's take misses something crucial: commercial infrastructure is no longer much of a Republican establishment priority. It just isn't. On the residential side, we see places like Colorado Springs quite comfortable going dark for the sake of sticking it to the liberals, and on the commercial side, we don't see anything like reliable attention to roads, power grids, anything. The really big money either makes its money manipulating other people's stuff or dealing with other nations who are willing to put more into that boring old physical junk. Back home, they're quite willing to see things break down and fall apart if they don't feel sufficiently loved and pandered to.


Posted by: Bruce Baugh | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 10:23 PM
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Underworld is almost a parody of what great American novels look like to outsiders. 5 times too long, and tedious fucking baseball.

As per DS's 365, though, Chabon is very readable, has plots and is actually entertaining.


Posted by: nattarGcM ttaM | Link to this comment | 07-29-11 11:40 PM
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I remember the non-assed Underworld having a great opening, and then 300 pages of boring, and then 300 pages of good. Probably if the boring part lasted 10 more pages I would have quit.

I don't see how the Democrats can surrender on the Boehner bill. It would be like giving Czechoslovaka to Hitler, when part of the deal is that Hitler promises to invade Poland in 6 months.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 1:10 AM
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369.2:I don't think they should. Should Boehner? Well, I won't like the Obama/Reid/McConnell bill much better.

I am a "no compromise is possible" kinda guy, at least til all the assholes stop playing games and using the world economy as a hostage. And they all are.

Obama should use some sort of Constitutional option.
Heat rises to the top.


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 3:25 AM
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I think there's almost no chance of the US defaulting - the only issue is really whether the deal struck will be enough to ward off a downgrade.

The Tea Party folks are nuts even, perhaps especially, to mainstream Republicans. They've gone from being a useful bargaining chip in negotiations with Democrats to the eccentric relative that says all the wrong things at the family party and now wants to help drive people to the train station.

2012: Romney versus Obama - voter turnout surges as the nation remains gripped by unemployment > 9% and a shrinking labor force participation rate - Obama barely wins, Congress remains divided, and the the US limps on until we've put the hangover from the financial crisis behind us.


Posted by: Andrew F. | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 3:55 AM
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As far as I can see, we're probably back in a recession now. (3 quarter downtrend, with last quarter at .4%, does not bode well.) So, right now I think Obama will be very vulnerable regardless of who the repub nominee is. I'm not sure I care, my guess is that the only chance we have at any stimulus at all, at this point, is to have a republican president, so all those worries about the deficit can go right to where they were from 2001-2008.

Although now that I think about it income growth was flat or negative over that time-frame too, so were fucked either way.


Posted by: Asteele | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 5:00 AM
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Chabon is there? Get him down and read him. He's very readable. You won't regret it.

Maybe not "regret," really, but if your time for reading is limited, you may feel a slight disappointment over having squandered several hundred man-pages that could have been spent at either the Unrepentant Trash or the Classic by Person Too Long Dead and Buried to Plague You with their Naked Careerism and Tediously Middlebrow Aesthetics and Politics ends of the scale, instead of the suspiciously easy-reading and forgettable median of the medium.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 7:33 AM
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Correction to my babbling upthread about American Crossroads: Dick Armey's outfit is FreedomWorks! D'oh. This dawned on me while brushing my teeth this morning. Sorry for the mixup.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 7:38 AM
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I'm not sure I care, my guess is that the only chance we have at any stimulus at all, at this point, is to have a republican president, so all those worries about the deficit can go right to where they were from 2001-2008.

This is probably correct, and the most depressing thing I've heard all week.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 7:51 AM
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There Will Be No Recovery Yggles on the long-term forever unemployed. Could have linked to Rampell at the Times. Especially youth and late-career.

The bad news is that massive youth unemployment can be absorbed into overseas adventures.

The good news is that even with or without the above, you usually get vibrant arts sectors and activist boutique politics!


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 8:00 AM
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massive youth unemployment can be absorbed into overseas adventures

It would be significantly cheaper just to pay them unemployment.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 8:22 AM
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373: I have Evelyn Waugh that I'm not going to read for that. Although I did actually start to read that.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 8:26 AM
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Maybe we should pay unemployed youth to convince me that I should maybe read something longer than a tweet.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 8:27 AM
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It was the best of tweets, it was the worst of tweets. #tl;dr


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 8:30 AM
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Does Waugh come under Unrepentant Trash or Classic by Person Too Long Dead and Buried to Plague You with their Naked Careerism and Tediously Middlebrow Aesthetics and Politics?

Either way, read Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies and forget the rest.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 8:45 AM
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Either way, read Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies and forget the rest.

No, you have to read Scoop.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 8:56 AM
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382 conceded. But that's it.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 9:01 AM
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381: Books about rich people by dead people can be either trash (Brideshead Revisited) or classics (Jeeves in the Morning, Jeeves at luncheon, Jeeves anytime , Jeeves for a thousand years, Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Gentleman's Personal Gentleman), sub-flavor pending; books about rich people by living people are always already crappy.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 9:08 AM
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books about rich people by living people are always already crappy.

So the Jeeves canon was crappy until February 1975 when the author's death magically transmuted it into gold?


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 9:26 AM
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385: The proposition is the result of reading guilty white liberal book reviews during the '90s and '00s. To apply it to pre-Reagan works would be the sort of anachronism that loads of tedious Internet pedants would be happy to tell us that attempting to psychoanalyze Augustus Caesar is.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 9:33 AM
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Also, nothing by Sterling Archer's butler tha P to tha G to the WD-House was ever dross, even those school stories in which everyone is exercised about being in the "House 11," whatever the hell that is.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 9:37 AM
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I'm not sure I care, my guess is that the only chance we have at any stimulus at all, at this point, is to have a republican president, so all those worries about the deficit can go right to where they were from 2001-2008.

Deficit ≠ stimulus. Republican-president deficits are in service of upward redistribution of wealth, and any Keynesian stimulus effect is incidental and minor.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 9:45 AM
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387: I love the school stories. They just need to be tempered by readings of Roald Dahl's Boy or Fry's The Liar.


Posted by: oudemia | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 9:48 AM
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Which I guess you acknowledge, Asteele, but it seems a pretty counterproductive "hope." And I think we knew we were screwed since last year when Obama started acting as if the deficit was a problem, so the question became not whether, but how much contractionary policy would be made.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 10:03 AM
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381, 382, 383: No, you have to read The Loved One. But then that's probably all.


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 10:03 AM
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I'm guessing the "House 11" would be the cricket team selected to represent the house.


Posted by: Cryptic ned | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 10:04 AM
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392: Why would a cricket team spend so much time concealing a pet hedgehog from the masters? Is there some occult significance? Sticky wickets? Slow bowlers? Something white flannel trousers something?


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 10:11 AM
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390: I don't really disagree, but during Gw's term the fed did keep the easy money spigots open the entire time.

Mostly I think we're doomed.


Posted by: Asteele | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 10:17 AM
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Naw, Waugh comes under "timeless, imperishable classic". Go read the Sword of Honour books. (Actually, even the TV adaptation of that didn't wholly suck.)


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 10:40 AM
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395: My thinking about the SoH trilogy was forever colored some years ago by a friend's reading aloud, from National Review, a personal ad (!) in which the writer compared himself to Guy Crouchback (!!). The assembled listeners advised her not to respond to the ad.


Posted by: Flippanter | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 11:05 AM
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Guy Crouchback wouldn't have left personal ads. But they would have been *awesome*.

(Althoughhh....he did leave one in the Times, didn't he? Looking for Chatty Corner's next of kin?)


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 11:39 AM
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I loved the SoH when I first read it at about 15. Then I read it again around 10 years ago and found that I didn't any more. My advice to Alex is not to return to them for his own sake. They never can recapture that first fine, careless rapture.


Posted by: chris y | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 11:43 AM
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396: The National Review has personal ads?

I will try to read Scoop. I liked the first chapter, but got distracted and never went back to it.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 12:11 PM
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I do recommend Underworld to folks with caveats. Main one is to ignore the baseball stuff and go with the flow it's structure and appreciate the exposition of the skeevy underpinnings of modern America.

But yeah, go read the USA trilogy by Dos Passos or Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio first.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 12:16 PM
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Or most any Sinclair Lewis.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 12:16 PM
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I've read Upton Sinclair. Close enough?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 12:18 PM
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There are apparently a few Lewis Uptons in the world.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 12:38 PM
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373: He's not going to "plague" anyone with "naked careerism" through the pages of one of his books, or at least I've felt decidedly not-thus-plagued in my experiences with him. As for whether he's "tediously middlebrow," meh. He writes for a popular audience and doesn't affect to be a philosopher. If that's "tediously middlebrow" I'm fine with it; I personally would save that kind of derogation -- insofar as terminology derived from phrenological pseudoscience and aristocratic disdain is in any way useful at all -- for someone like John Fowles, who commonly affects to be something he's not. But that's me.


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 2:41 PM
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(Perhaps it's just that I find nothing more tediously middlebrow than an exaggerated concern with how highbrow one's reading matter is or isn't. That anxiety rarely seems to afflict the genuinely highbrow.)


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 2:47 PM
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All I've read of Chabon is The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and that just a couple of years ago. I found it a page-turner (which may or may not be considered an endorsement); most notable to my mind is that I've continued to remember it with ... fondness and respect? ... in fair detail. An odd thing to note, but there it is.

I've considered that I should read more of him, and understand that the Yiddish Policemen thing is recommended. Anything else? Chabon has been discussed here before, so I imagine I can consult those threads.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 07-30-11 4:46 PM
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