The shocking defeat of a long-term senator — Sen. Robert F. Bennett — for the Republican Party nomination in Utah.
The response from Timothy M. Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee:
"That the Tea Party would consider Bob Bennett -- one of the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate -- too liberal just goes to show how extreme the Tea Party is. This is just the latest battle in the corrosive Republican intra-party civil war . . . If there was any question before, there should now be no doubt that the Republican leadership has handed the reins to the Tea Party."He sounds upset.
पोस्ट्स
१८२ टिप्पण्या:
Kaine? Upset?
He's playing everyone. He's acting out a Kabuki. He's spinning.
He's terrified. And he's correct. The ass of his part is ours.
I guess it all depends on how you define "conservative."
Bennet has always been a big government kind of guy, not afraid to let the government interfere in lives or business.
I guess if "conservative" means "against the democrat party" then, yeah, he was a conservative, but that's not much.
A good thought from Richard Fernandez @ The Belmont Club yesterday:
The Tea Parties represent an asymmetric threat to political organizations optimized for party-line warfare. The threat is no longer across the aisle but outside the building. As such, two possibilities suggest themselves. The first is that the Washington elite will circle the wagons, bury their minor differences and concentrate on keeping the money and power flowing to the capital. A threat from outside the building is after all, a threat to everybody inside the building. The other possibility is that enough members of the elite will realize that jig is up and strive to accommodate themselves to the new reality. In the coming months we are likely to see both gambits. Some politicians will opt to tap the tide; others will seek to master it.
http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2010/05/08/r-utah/
wv: "whing"
Which wing is the whinge wing of which party?
Handed the reins?
If anything the reins are being seized.
And the DNC can kiss goodbye their hope of dominating the conversation and holding the self-defined moral high-ground, as they regrettably have for 40 years.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Mr. Kaine.
It's especially galling that Bennet referred to his three terms in the Senate as his "career." That is the same kind of stink that the democrats emitted when they called the vacant seat the "Kennedy" seat.
Whatever caused Bennett's defeat, it can't have been Tea Party opposition. Bennett isn't black.
Bennett is so nutty rightist it isn't even funny. But, even that isn't enough to satisfy the teabaggers. Let's make popcorn while the nutters eat their own alive.
libhom said...
Bennett is so nutty rightist it isn't even funny. But, even that isn't enough to satisfy the teabaggers.
The Tea Party is as much anti-incumbent as it is Anti-Democrat.
In Bennet's case, he supported TARP, and enough folks in his state thught there were better candidates in future elections.
"The next time you cross the aisle to work with the Democrats, stay there."
- too long for a flag motto
Tim Kaine should be rubbing his little hands with glee. Anti-RINOism has prevented viable GOP candidates from being fielded for statewide office in California for over a decade. Dem candidate Grey Davis ran ads during the GOP primary pointing out how moderate Riordan was, and suggesting the GOP go for a redmeat conservative.
Were it not for the recall California would have had 12 years of Democrats in the statehouse. Barbara Boxer became senator because the GOP ran a redmeat conservative against her.
"He sounds upset."
Kaine is upset. He should be.
Bennett was one of of the Democrats' most reliable moles - er, votes.
He outed himself by crossing the aisle to help construct Democrat Party legislation that would have forced people to purchase health insurance. If you work with Democrats to help pass their legislation, you're signing your political death warrant.
One hopes that Republicans are receiving the message we are sending.
He wasn't the first mole discovered. He won't be the last mole fired.
The real story however is not Bob Bennett. He's a peripheral player on the scene - a plot device only.
The real story is why would Mitt Romney waste one more second or one more dollar attempting to gain political office.
Romney created ObamaCare and forced it down the throat of the citizens of the state of Massachusetts. He showed Obama how to build it and how to pass it. He's made billions investing in insurance companies as a result of it.
Romney is finished, politically. He couldn't get elected to be a Mormon dog catcher in Salt Lake City.
Can he not read the tea leaves?
"That the Tea Party would consider Bob Bennett -- one of the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate -- too liberal"
Idiot. Bennett was dispatched not because he's too liberal, but because he's become part of the Establishment Elite that refuses to represent the will of those who elected him. Too many compromises of principle to save his own ass.
He sounds upset
Yes, even the Libtard understands that this is not limited to conservatives. Many Dem congress-critters have resigned rather than face the storm coming their way.
Its not about Republican VS Democrat or Conservative VS Liberal. Its about out of control spending of Other's People Money [OPM].
He's scared because he knows his crew is next on the chopping block.
"... too long for a flag motto"
That's OK, we've got one already.
Hoo Ra.
Whew boy!
Althouse is having problems understanding that the extreme right's growing assertion of control of the Republican party will be as politically successful as the extreme left's control of the Democratic party through 1992.
Hang in there, Altie! Accountability for your opinions is not something you're required to have... yet. But when it is, we'll shed a tear for you.
It is finally becoming obvious to some, despite the machinations of the MSM, that the tea parties are not by any stretch of the imagination extremists. The tea parties comprise every race and demographic, and both political parties. They are simply sick and tired of the payoff and patronage schemes of professional politicians, and want the well-being of the nation and its people to come before the maintenance of political power. Liberals will prefer to keep their fantasies of racist tea party fascists red in tooth and claw, but you can only ignore the truth for so long. Incumbents in both parties will be turned out en masse and their common characteristic will be a willingness to spend the nation into bankruptcy.
FLS: Anti-RINOism has prevented viable GOP candidates
M'kay. Maybe I spoke too soon when I said even libtards understand this isn't about RINOs.
"If anything the reins are being seized."
The reins are being forcibly yanked from their hands, and then used to bitchslap the previous holders smack in the face.
Hear, hear, Tyrone. The teabaggers are so mainstream. The haters just don't understand how practical their policy proposals are.
Oh wait. What policy proposals?
Ideals and principles are not policy and they don't constitute a way to govern effectively. But you can make a lot of noise about them and get ineffective pols elected around them.
I hesistate to draw too many conclusions about national politics from Utah. Democrats and in particular Kaine will use this to characterize the Tea Party's effect on republicans as to bury it in the far right but actually that's just masking the wink wink nod nod, they're just a racists meme that the MSM latches onto.
That's Kaine's job and he'll have plenty of help doing it.
One of the Democrat's most reliable votes? Once again, New Ham proves that he has absolutely no clue what he is talking about (not like that should be a surprise to anyone here)
An anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-affirmative action, pro-corporations, pro-abstinence only sex-ed, anti-global warming, pro-oil drilling, pro-free trade, anti-McCain-Feingold, pro-gun, anti-illegal immigration, anti-separation of church and state, anti-tax Senator. Clearly a Democrat mole. What a frickin' RINO!!!
Of course, since I disagree with New Ham, inevitably he will call me a pro-Holocaust, anti-semite KKK member as he is prone to do.
Ritmo: Althouse is having problems understanding that the extreme right's growing assertion of control of the Republican party will be -
No. The TEA Party will lay waste to both parties. You're an idiot for not recognizing the movement has removed Democrats from office too. Its not about GOP infighting.
But I'm pleased to see you'll be fighting the next political war with the last war's tactics.
It strikes me that one of the reasons that there has been such hysteria regarding the Tea Party is that there still exists the possibility that they are actually serious about changing DC.
The entire TP movement right now is about the shrinking of govt. and the decentralization of power, which is heresy to those ambitious bastards in DC.
If they're actually serious about this, and not just using this for political ambitions (see the anti-war movement) then any victory of theirs is a direct threat to those in govt. They will be actively seeking to take away the power the politicians and bureaucrats have been grabbing for the better part of a century.
RitmoLibtard: The teabaggers are -
Oh go fuck yourself Libtard.
And no, you cant suck on my balls, you sicko perv.
Utah resident here.
Bob Bennett became a big government conservative. No matter what the problem was, the federal government could solve it albeit in a "conservative" way. THIS ISN'T CONSERVATISM, it's liberal-lite. Hatch is even worse.
That said, a big factor was his arrogance. He and Hatch have been running around Utah telling constituents that they are idiots for not giving them the credit they deserve. Both keep losing their temper in interviews and town hall meetings (seriously.) Then they fall back on the bullshit of politics being broken. Yesterday, Bennett kept saying that the political environment was "toxic" and then threatened to run a write in campaign when democracy didn't fall in his favor.
Bennett is a disgrace.
Drill Sgt. said: "The Tea Party is as much anti-incumbent as it is Anti-Democrat."
The Tea Party is neither anti-incumbent nor anti-Democrat. Anyone who takes this to be the main driver is woefully mistaken.
The Tea Party IS anti-incumbent. Anyone who does NOT takes this to be the main driver is woefully mistaken.
/unsupported assertions are so much fun
I saw little about this nationally, and then it happened. It shows conservatives can take care of business in their respective States.
"If there was any question before, there should now be no doubt that the Republican leadership has handed the reins to the Tea Party."
If the Tea Party is extreme or centrist, I'll leave to others to figure out.
However, it is clear from where I sit that the Republican leadership has handed over nothing. It's been wrested from their cold, nearly dead hands.
"...as politically successful as the extreme left's control of the Democratic party through 1992."
Democrat Party domestic terrorist Bill Ayers has been a visitor to the White House four times since the election of his friend and political protege Barack Hussein Obama.
Seems to me like the murderers on the fascist left still hold the reins of the Democrat Party. They're certainly welcome at The White House it seems.
Baby boomer liberals screwed up this country. Now baby boomer tea partiers are taking it back and fixing it before they hand it down to their kids and grandkids.
It could be a script for a good movie.
No. The TEA Party will lay waste to both parties.
As they have laid waste to the concept of governing effectively.
You're an idiot for not recognizing the movement has removed Democrats from office too. Its not about GOP infighting.
If you want to have a new party replacing factions of the old ones, a new party built on nothing other than an anti-pragmatic ignorance of government, politics, and basic trade-offs, I say go for it.
"If there was any question before, there should now be no doubt that the Republican leadership has handed the reins to the Tea Party."
Did the Democrat leadership also hand the reins to the Tea Party when Walt Minnick (D-ID) won its endorsement?
Second question: Wouldn't it be awesome if they did?
If only the Republicans would listen to the Democrats, they would have a fine party.
John McCain, are you paying attention?
We don't want peace between the political parties. We want productive competition.
We don't want politicians to feel safe in their jobs when we aren't safe in ours.
We don't want "dialog" (i.e. shut up and accept what we tell you), we want uncontrolled, open debate.
Leftists "Visualize World Peace". I don't want their friggin soviet style, government controlled world peace. It's time to "Visualize World Liberty", where people have strong property rights, human rights, and self rule.
And you can't be "post racial" if you keep compulsively playing the race card when race isn't the issue.
The Tea Partiers are anti- any politician who is against the interests and will of the people.
Fen said...
"That the Tea Party would consider Bob Bennett -- one of the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate -- too liberal"
Idiot. Bennett was dispatched not because he's too liberal, but because he's become part of the Establishment Elite that refuses to represent the will of those who elected him. Too many compromises of principle to save his own ass.
Precisely. Like too many Republicans, he stayed in DC too long and became more concerned with legacy and what the Demos would throw him.
Orrin Hatch is one of their targets as much as Barbara Boxer, largely because Hatch has started drinking the Beltway Kool-Aid.
They may well end up supporting Mickey Kaus as much (or more) than Carly Fiorina, as far as that goes.
Ritmo Brasileiro said...
Whew boy!
Althouse is having problems understanding that the extreme right's growing assertion of control of the Republican party will be as politically successful as the extreme left's control of the Democratic party through 1992.
Concern trolling on the half-shell.
Hear, hear, Tyrone. The teabaggers are so mainstream. The haters just don't understand how practical their policy proposals are.
Oh wait. What policy proposals?
Fiscal responsibility, reduced spending, lower taxes, an end to bailouts.
Ideals and principles are not policy and they don't constitute a way to govern effectively. But you can make a lot of noise about them and get ineffective pols elected around them.
We keep forgetting. Only the National Socialists know how to govern effectively and effective government means doing what the National Socialists tell us to do. The Times Square Bomber and the oil slick prove that.
God Save the Elite!
Oh, btw, I wonder how long it will be until politically dissatisfied Americans turn to violence...
And not just the Hutaree idiots. When will we have bona fide "seditious conspiracy"? When will we find that "weapons of mass destruction" have been deployed by non-Muslims?
@joe - Telling comment on Bennet and his temper. I saw a brief *friendly* segment where he said (I paraphrase) "If people were wiser they'd see that my policy background is an asset to Utah's collection of federal spending."
Wow, totally missing the point there, and whenever someone calls me "unwise" I just want to punch them. Which may well prove their point, but so it goes.
You guys are better off w/o him. I voted against Burr b/c he voted for the bailout and did not vote against Bush's crazy spending. He won't get defeated, but at least he's only 4% RINO.
-XC
Ritmo...You sound as if you now approve of Sarah Palin's approach to the Tea Party activists and connecting them into a winning governing coalition. She has shown the leadership skills that you see as MIA among the Americans acting in Tea Party Mode.
Fiscal responsibility, reduced spending, lower taxes, an end to bailouts.
Soooo not mutually exclusive to the asshole protesters' DEMANDS that not a dime of their social security be cut!
Where's the spending, concern troll? Medicare, SS, and the military. Cutting taxes and decreasing spending is mutually exclusive with keeping all three of those things - THAT THE TEA PARTIERS WANT!
So guess what? They either don't understand trade-offs, are too fucking ignorant to engage the policy, or are stuck in the realm of magical thinking. Or all three.
As I said, they are not a serious movement. They are what the hippies became after Nixon was elected. Wishful dreamers. Only at least the liberal version had interesting and imaginative ideas, rather than (just) a complete war on math and reality. And they weren't stuck in the past.
"Ideals and principles are not policy and they don't constitute a way to govern effectively. But you can make a lot of noise about them and get ineffective pols elected around them."
We keep forgetting. Only the National Socialists know how to govern effectively and effective government means doing what the National Socialists tell us to do. The Times Square Bomber and the oil slick prove that.
Which led to so many deaths in the first case and was the result of policies favored by the right in the latter.
But keep up the talk on Nazis. It makes you sound about as serious and intelligent as the average Tea Partier.
"It's the center of American politics. It's everything that we've been saying it is. It's not just a protest movement; it's a political force."
...in Utah.
Ritmo...What you see as effective governance, the Tea Partiers see as two political parties approving massive theft as if it is a game called DC Earmarks Pinyata, and now that this culture of corruption has become familiar, they actually call it Conservatism since they also bashed a few gay scapegoats along the way.
Ritmo...What you see as effective governance, the Tea Partiers see as two political parties approving massive theft as if it is a game called DC Earmarks Pinyata, and now that this culture of corruption has become familiar, they actually call it Conservatism since they also bashed a few gay scapegoats along the way.
What's interesting to me is that the above sounds more like political, rhetorical posturing than does the simple observation that the biggest expenditures of government by far are Social Security, Medicare and Defense, and the Tea Parties want to cut none of them!!!
So they are all talk on the fiscal front. And anyone can rally against corruption.
They are not a real political movement. They are about as interested in governing seriously as is your typical revolutionary.
Ritmo Brasileiro said... "what policy proposals?"
How about QUIT SPENDING TAX DOLLARS YOU DON'T HAVE..... clear enough?
Ritmo is scared shitless too. His outrage is telling.
But keep up the talk on Nazis. It makes you sound about as serious and intelligent as the average Tea Partier.
All that time spent reading the talking points and you can't stay consistent. If YOU'RE so serious and intelligent, you need to keep calling the "Tea Baggers".
Getting rid of Education and Energy and HUD would save about 200 billion. I suspect we could find another 100 billion or so in Medicare and social security fraud.
That would erase a big part of Obama's annual deficit.
So whose tax dollars were approved to be spent on DEFENSE, SOCIAL SECURITY, AND MEDICARE, RICK?
IS THAT CLEAR ENOUGH?
THE TEA PARTIES DON'T WANT TO CUT THEM!!!
Just like Rick, the are making noise. They are not serious. They are the conservative's revolutionary, spouting blather about fiscal responsibility while opposing any cuts in the biggest expenditures that government commits.
I notice it took a while for anyone to respond, and rick clearly fell for the trick of offering the same empty rhetoric while flubbing the math.
I suppose others might catch on sooner or later.
In fct, if Obama had the common sense and stole the fiscal ideas of conservatives and Tea Parties, he could save his Presidency.
Fortunately for the country, Obama lacks common sense.
It is never a bad thing for an incumbent to lose.
If you think a particular Senator is indispensable, walk through a graveyard to look at all the indispensable people there.
@Ritmo
"If you want to have a new party replacing factions of the old ones, a new party built on nothing other than an anti-pragmatic ignorance of government, politics, and basic trade-offs, I say go for it.
I'd say that's a feature not a bug.
Perhaps you haven't noticed that everything created by either party and "managed" by the govt. is FUBAR.
More policy proposals:
Eliminate: Dept of Education
Eliminate: Dept of Energy
Eliminate: Earmarks
Eliminate: Any monument,statue, building or highway with Robert Byrd or Ted Kennedy's name slated to be on it. Then proceed with the balance of the senate.
Its about out of control spending of Other's People Money [OPM].
Twenty years of out of control spending of OPM while a Reagan or a Bush was in the White House says to pick another reason.
Actual Spending (not that it matters to people committing fiscal warfare against statues, highways, the energy department, etc.):
Health Spending: 22%
Defense: 24%
Pensions: 21%
But we got statues to go to war against. Good point.
Eliminate: Earmarks
Earmarks are not the problem -- appropriations are the problem. Appropriations are a coupon for free Ben & Jerry's -- earmarks are the flavor.
Sorry Ritmo, I was typing while you were responding.
Social Security; Wean the younger set off SS. Stop giving SS to those who did not contribute. BTW Ritmo, according to all the libs in congress for the last 20 years, SS was in a protected trust fund.
The only only thing I want the Feds to spend money on national defense. Not GM, Chrysler,birth control,healthcare,highways,railroads,tarp, carp,labor studies, unemployment compensation, windmills..the list is endless.
As a contrast, barely 4% of the federal budget goes to education. And in the coming years, that's already set to decrease further.
But keep sending in guys like "rick" to rally the troops, A.J. They scare me with their inability to look at a chart and cut the biggest components.
This has been a fascinating decade with two wars and the fall of the mainstream media dominance, coupled with the rise of the blogosphere.
Term limits have been talked about for years and now finally another approach on limiting career politician tenure with the TEA Party efforts.
How the TEA Party affects other politicians this year will be fascinating to watch. Bennett will not be the last to to be thrown out by the TEA Partiers. I wonder which Democrat Congressional incumbent will be hit, other than Spector?
The only only thing I want the Feds to spend money on national defense.
What a surprise. The biggest component of the federal budget is a sacred cow to someone proposing that his platform is to end its expenditure of "other people's money".
But cut the highways and railroads, rick. What was Eisenhower thinking?
I've known Senator Bennet for much of my life -- his wife taught my little sister flute -- and I've been really astonished at the heat against him. I also worked for a time at a transcription service covering congressional hearings, so I listened to him (intently, at length) at many hearings as well, and so I know him a bit as a politician as well.
He was definitely more centrist than many Republicans (and I can see how the party would like a hardcore party-liner from their surefire seats in Utah), but he was also a really genuine guy, more interested in getting things done than in scoring points on his e opposition, and a cool head when hearings around him devolved into partisan shouting matches. I'm sad to see him go.
Stop giving SS to those who did not contribute.
Harsh medicine for stay-at-home-moms on Mother's Day
LibtardRitmo: If you want to have a new party replacing factions of the old ones, a new party built on nothing other than an anti-pragmatic ignorance of government, politics, and basic trade-offs, I say go for it.
Hey dumbass, its not about a new party. Maybe we should explain it to you again slower with simple words...
Ritmo
I live in Pa....why oh why do we need to send tax money to DC, only to have a smaller portion returned to Pa. for highways and railroads. Please use your financial noodle here. This isn't rocket surgery.
LibtardRitmo: Soooo not mutually exclusive to the asshole protesters' DEMANDS that not a dime of their social security be cut!
Ritmo: too stupid to see that Less Government != No Government
FLS: Twenty years of out of control spending of OPM while a Reagan or a Bush was in the White House says to pick another reason.
Porkbusters.
But you didn't notice because you were too busy claiming Bush MIHOP LIHOP etc.
And since the spending has gotten worse by a degree under Obama, so has the outrage over it.
But its good to hear the parasites complain that we aren't being taxed enough to pay their mortgages and health care.
Ritmo
My sister-in-law has taught in the public school system for 30 years. I asked her what benefits the Fed Dept of Education have provided her classroom (other than funding).
She could not give me an answer
"Harsh medicine for stay-at-home-moms on Mother's Day"
Sniffle... So, you're saying that they didn't work but they're getting social security anyway? Seems sustainable. Better hope they had more than 1 kid since each of those kids has to make transfer payments to keep their parents out of cat food.
Watched Cspan yesterday and heard a first..Some lib called in and called it the "last 10 years of Bush administration".
Bambi is never going to be in charge.
Kaine should be worried: the old campaign drivers, identity politics and the permanent dole, are now rallying cries for a silent-no-more bipartisan majority.
RitmoLibtard: They are not a real political movement.
Tell that to former Senator Robert F. Bennett.
Maybe he'll let you suck on his balls too, Libtard.
It's an anti-incumbency thing. Bennett was seeking a 4th term. Both parties have conspired to rig the system in favor of incumbents. But screw up as bad as Congress has for the last 20+ years, people will find a way to unrig things.
Do you realize that both Democrats and Republicans are 4% Whig?
Fen said, "The Tea Party IS anti-incumbent."
Nope, and shouting IS won't make it so. Tea Partiers didn't eject Bennett because he's an incumbent. They ejected him because he voted for bailouts.
If Tea Partiers were anti-incumbent, they would be against incumbents such as Jim DeMint, Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, and Mike Pence (I could list more). They're very enthustically for those incumbents.
A glance at the Contract From America will tell you that the Tea Party is not about incumbency. Read the top 10 concerns Tea Partiers themselves have registered. There's not a syllable about incumbency.
Oh what a surprise! Fen came back to ask, Jeremy-style, for others to suck on his balls. Nice touch. I can see he speaks well enough for what must be a serious political movement.
Nope, and shouting IS won't make it so
No, you made a silly assertion unsupported by anything, so I merely returned serve. Not shouting.
A glance at the Contract From America will tell you that the Tea Party is not about incumbency. Read the top 10 concerns Tea Partiers themselves have registered. There's not a syllable about incumbency.
Thats as silly as saying there's not a syllable about privacy in the Bill of Rights.
And I've read the contract - almost all of the complaints stem from congress-critters doing "business as usual".
Google TEA Party & Anti-Incumbent. See what returns. Like this, from the latest victim:
"It's hitting just about every incumbent," Bennett said in a recent interview. For many Republicans "that's really good because most of the incumbents are Democrats. But in this state, there is no Democrat to get really mad at in this fashion, so they get mad at me."
Bennett's list of perceived political transgressions is long: He voted for the bank bailout, co-authored an alternative health care reform bill, and has already broken his promise, made 18 years ago, to only serve 12 years."
http://www.newser.com/story/87042/anti-incumbent-fever-could-take-down-gops-bennett.html
RitmoLibtard: Oh what a surprise! Fen came back to ask, Jeremy-style, for others to suck on his balls
Stupid Libtard. You're the one calling for Teabaggers, so its assumed you are the one wanting to suck their balls.
Why else do you use the term "teabagger" Ritmo, if not for soliciting your sicko perversion onto the rest of us?
Ritmo-
Obama's annual deficit is 10-15% of fed spending so when you cut or eliminate 4% [your claim as to Dept of Education], you reduce Obama's annual deficit quite a bit.
Ritmo Brasileiro said...
Fiscal responsibility, reduced spending, lower taxes, an end to bailouts.
Soooo not mutually exclusive to the asshole protesters' DEMANDS that not a dime of their social security be cut!
Where's the spending, concern troll? Medicare, SS, and the military. Cutting taxes and decreasing spending is mutually exclusive with keeping all three of those things - THAT THE TEA PARTIERS WANT!
Obviously, Ritmo never heard the old Chinese proverb that you can always tell who's losing the argument - he's the first to raise his voice.
He also never heard that there's a difference between cutting benefits and cutting the administrative costs of something like Social Security, which the Republicans wanted to do for 70 years, but the Demos demagogued shamelessly.
In any case, I have yet to see a Tea Party sign that said, "Hands Off".
Again, projection isn't just for the local multi-plex.
We keep forgetting. Only the National Socialists know how to govern effectively and effective government means doing what the National Socialists tell us to do. The Times Square Bomber and the oil slick prove that.
Which led to so many deaths in the first case and was the result of policies favored by the right in the latter.
Dumb luck in the first does not count as good government. In the second, predisposition toward drilling for oil does not mean a predisposition toward a lack of preparedness for accidents. the Zero had a year to be ready, but turning the country into Greece was more important.
Stop it! Stop this arguing right now. Here, have yourself an animated Jack-in-the-Pulpit.
Here, that is
Chip:
Your flower looks like it is giving us the finger. LOL.
Damn you Admiral.
This is a total head fake. You can see it a mile away. The DNC is scared shitless and they know it. To throw out the charge of extremism is a funny one coming from this idiots mouth.
I'd love to debate further, Edu, in a voice soft enough for all of Mao's countrymen to admire. But poor fen, with his use of "tard" and demands that non-Tea Partiers suck his balls, has convinced me that the Tea Party movement is much too sophisticated for those of us who suffer under the illusion that you can't seriously curb the debt while proclaiming 67% of its expenditures to be hands-off.
Ritmo Brasileiro said...
Ideals and principles
Sometimes I really wonder if you are using nothing but a word generator as a means to fill in word count because you neither understand what your are putting on the screen nor do you actually believe it. Ideals and principals are the basis for policy. They create policy. Policy originates from them. Therefore they are foundational to any policy. The Declaration of Independence is the preeminent example of such ideals and principals while The Constitution is the policy as a manifestation of those ideals and principals.
There really isn't a need to insult you when you babble this type of nonsense. You are self-fulfilling.
Ritmo, the point you keep missing is the difference between federal legitimate government functions and illegitimate federal functions.
National defense is a legitimate federal function; Education is not. The entire welfare state is not a federal function. When we start cutting items from the budget we need to start with the items that are not part of the federal purview to begin with.
Social Security is a completely different matter. When 15% of my compensation for the last 30 years has been taken for a specific program that was supposed to be a held for my specific benefit, then I don’t consider the SSA meeting those requirements to be federal spending. Of course, since the ‘lockbox’ has been robbed blind for the last 75 years, it had become de facto spending instead of repayment.
I would be more than happy to dump the entire Social Security system IMMEDIATELY; just explain to me how the SSA will be able to meet its obligation to repay me the money it has confiscated?
WV: redisism- the belief that one can put down another more than once in a singel comment
Definition of a racist:
One who is against bailouts, Tarp, national health care, earmarks, and crap and trade.
Ideals and principals are the basis for policy. They create policy.
So is reality.
There really isn't a need to insult when your understanding of reality is that deficient.
But go ahead and enlighten us on evolution and how its mechanisms aren't really well understood. Or whatever.
Tim Kaine should be rubbing his little hands with glee. Anti-RINOism has prevented viable GOP candidates from being fielded for statewide office in California for over a decade.
What does "anti-RINOism" in California have to do with the defeat of a conservative Republican in Utah?
Legitimate and illegitimate state functions... I suppose everyone here is an armchair Supreme Court justice.
Anyway, social security won't be cut. Proposing as much will go nowhere because it is too popular. The Tea Partiers haven't brought it up, and just as often proclaim that they oppose doing so anyway. But then, they have no coherent platform whatsoever.
And yes, they have been known to carry signs saying "Government out of my Medicare", and such.
They are not a serious movement. They might be populist, or angry, or serious about how they feel. Or whatever. But they have an unserious approach to politics that is paralleled by how unserious they are about governing.
They are all the GOP has left after years of anti-government demagoguery that left us with nothing but, well... you look at Bush's legacy and let me know what you think. That's the logical extension of the pathos that drove the GOP. And it's all the Tea Partiers are. All pathos, no reason. Just sloganeering, rage and no ideas.
This is a total head fake. You can see it a mile away. The DNC is scared shitless and they know it. To throw out the charge of extremism is a funny one coming from this idiots mouth.
I don't think they're all that scared. I think they see a strategic problem -- Obama and the '06-'08 congresses were elected due to the significantly greater motivation among liberal voters, combined with a readiness of independents to embrace the Democrats, especially a figure as appealing as Obama. One problem is, in '10, the motivation has shifted to the right. The Dems can't do anything about that. But they think they can increase the currently depressed motivation on the left -- certainly not to '08 levels, but higher than it is now. The way to do this is to paint the Republicans as captive of un-American extremists, to demonize the Tea Party, Fox News, Wall Street, the oil industry as a racist-corporate-greedy-backward-unfair complex that will ruin the country. Most voters don't buy that, but the voters they are targeting eat it up with a spoon.
The Tea Party lesson:
Power corrupts.
Government power corrupts absolutely.
Anyway, social security won't be cut. Proposing as much will go nowhere because it is too popular.
That conventional wisdom is going to expire eventually.
The Tea Party movement is focused like a laser beam on debt. It is a reaction to unprecedented levels of debt incurred in the past two years. Period.
This movement will undo a lot of these tedious talking points that make political hacks feel smart; among them, the notion that Social Security is "the third rail of American politics."
wv: sheenom. A surprisingly talented female athlete.
Ritmo Brasileiro said...
So is reality.
There really isn't a need to insult when your understanding of reality is that deficient.
But go ahead and enlighten us on evolution and how its mechanisms aren't really well understood. Or whatever.
Meaningless deflection. Typical. I never claimed to know the total workings of evolution. Do you? I know it exists. I know it's there, I have a very good understanding of it, but I freely admit that it's inner details are a gap in my knowledge and unless you can tell me what the fundamental mechanism of evolution is and what drives it, then maybe you should consider not letting your fingers touch a keyboard for a while.
John Stodder said...
The way to do this is to paint the Republicans as captive of un-American extremists, to demonize the Tea Party, Fox News, Wall Street, the oil industry as a racist-corporate-greedy-backward-unfair complex that will ruin the country. Most voters don't buy that, but the voters they are targeting eat it up with a spoon.
If that requires that the typical democrat voter has the IQ of a shoe size, then I'd agree with your assessment to a degree. Si Se Puede. The rally cry of the typical leftard voter.
a new party built on nothing other than an anti-pragmatic ignorance of government, politics, and basic trade-offs
That's the first time I've heard a trillion-dollar deficit described as "pragmatic" or "a trade-off".
A trade-off between what and what, I wonder?
Anyway, social security won't be cut. Proposing as much will go nowhere because it is too popular.
The problem with the "Social Security cuts are too unpopular to pass" theory is that we've seen that Congress is perfectly capable of ramming through legislation the majority of the public hates -- ObamaCare, for example. So we know it can be done. It isn't LIKELY that Social Security will be cut, but it is possible.
The Tea Party movement is focused like a laser beam on debt.
Then I suppose it's to their debt (not credit) that they don't seem to have a clue as to the structure of government spending.
You can sell an oversimplified message to a bunch of simpletons. But ultimately someone with some political sense is required if they want to get into office and do, uh, anything.
A trade-off between what and what, I wonder?
The cost curve of health care expenditures as a proportion of GDP now as opposed to the future.
But conservatives seem to lack a concept of... time.
Ritmo actually believes that Obamacare is going to "bend the cost curve" down. Giggle.
Why is it that Dems and Reps can expand the government, but attempts at shrinking it are met with claims that it's impossible?
A Republican state in the middle of the desert with an extractive economy decides to oust the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Committee in the middle of a Democratic Administration. Brilliant. Any bets on when the next Utah national monument is announced?
Then I suppose it's to their debt (not credit) that they don't seem to have a clue as to the structure of government spending.
And you know this...how?
I love it in a sick way when ideologues like Ritmo claim to know what their foes know. It's hard to know what anybody knows, really, unless you spend a lot of time with them. But it is especially hard to know what's in the minds of people you loathe, fear and have contempt for. It's fine to hate them as much as you do, but you can't then claim to speak with any authority about what they know.
I love it in a sick way when ideologues like Ritmo claim to know what their foes know. It's hard to know what anybody knows, really, unless you spend a lot of time with them. But it is especially hard to know what's in the minds of people you loathe, fear and have contempt for. It's fine to hate them as much as you do, but you can't then claim to speak with any authority about what they know.
For someone who claims not to be an ideologue, you sure seem to spend a lot of words defending people who have nothing but ideology to stand on.
I don't claim Tea Partiers as "foes" and I don't claim to know them.
I only claim that they are too disorganized and vague in their message to amount to much of anything.
If they impact the political dialog, though, so be it. I don't care. Cut expenditures, blah, blah, blah. Yes, that's all very nice and good.
In the meantime, they have no, you know, plan for how to do so. For what they want cut while maintaining whatever political compromises make them viable.
They also have no spokesperson. They have no viable leader.
Now Sarah Palin (leader of the state that led the country in subsidies), spoke on their behalf. But I don't think that improves their credibility.
All this crap you claim to know or studied regarding "communications" and you are that far behind on how politics actually works.
Maybe you might want to expand your horizons a bit, John.
"the ranking member of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Committee in the middle of a Democratic Administration"
This is precisely the problem at hand.
This is precisely the problem at hand.
Don't hate the playa, hate the game. Bennett was doing precisely what he was elected to do, protect the interests of his state. An elected representative who leaves office prior to obtaining any real influence does his or her constituents no favors.
Ritmo said...."vague in their message"
What part of QUIT SPENDING don't you understand? Do I need to spell it for you....Oh wait a minute, I just did.
I am mystified by your obtuseness.
Ritmo really doesn't get it at all. I don't think that the conservatives are against all government spending. What they are talking about is analyzing what is being spent in detail and eliminating those parts that are not productive. SS and Medicare really can't be stopped because there are a lot of people like me who paid for close to 50 years for that insurance policy. If you are going to stop SS, then you need to pay back what was taken from us all those years. It is not an entitlement. It is an insurance that was taken whether we wanted it or not.
What should be cut is a lot of the programs that do not work. The libs have for years just kept throwing more and more money at failing programs thinking that is more gets tossed there sooner or later it will stick and actually work. What the conservatives are all about is saying what doesn't work should be cut and what works should be funded. some whole programs can be cut completely. Others can have parts of them cut. However to do that you need to get down to the nitty gritty and actually analyze what is happening and that is something the libs don't want to do. Notice that whenever anyone talks about cutting spending the libs never talk about individual projects but always about whole departments only. You want to cut spending at state level, then you are going to cut police, fire, teachers, etc. Not that you are going to cut police programs that do not work but that you are going to cut huge swathes of the department. And then the MSM writes all these scare stories about how if you cut these failing programs, then you are damaging the cheeeellllldddddrrrrreeeeeennnnn or public safety or something else and then the liberal commenters here just play along without thinking. But what else is new about that. That is the liberal stock in trade.
Bennett was doing precisely what he was elected to do, protect the interests of his state.
No he wasn't except in that very narrow circumstance. I'm a resident of Utah and Bennett has been astonishingly indifferent to the state. Like Hatch, he has repeatedly worked to move more and more responsibilities to the federal government and very little to do the reverse.
Even if Bennett had been effective, the moment he stated that the democratic process was "toxic" he became unfit for office.
"hate the game"
Doing constituents favors became the monster we have now.
Yup. A freeze on all spending. That's going to happen.
See John, I told you so.
And then "dick" comes in and pokes around to accuse me of not getting what I already flatly stated: That cons are opposed to touching 67% of the budget.
This is the crowd that you claim constitutes a burgeoning, potent, political "movement".
They're nothing but cons who are clinging on to the politics of the nineties and aughts - while refusing to account for changed realities. They sure got the message right. They got that down pat. But the politics have changed and they've got nothing pragmatic to build a coalition with. But who could blame them? 16 years of Limbaugh-Gingrich-Rove have convinced them of their drunken delusions of superiority and lack of any need to convince others of agreeing with them, let alone compromising with them.
No he wasn't except in that very narrow circumstance. I'm a resident of Utah and Bennett has been astonishingly indifferent to the state.
Hi Joe. I'm a fellow Beehiver, but oddly enough we have drawn different conclusions regarding the good Senators representation of our fine state. I guess we'll just leave it at that.
Doing constituents favors became the monster we have now.
I know, right? It's about time we repeal that damned 17th Amendment.
I don't know much about Bennet, but if he was an incumbent, he needed to go. This is a safe bet. Frankly, I'd prefer anyone from the local gun club mailing list.
How upsetting to the ruling class that the people choose to ignore Royalty for a new approach.
"Now Sarah Palin (leader of the state that led the country in subsidies), spoke on their behalf. But I don't think that improves their credibility."
Don't you?
Alaska and Utah are subject to federal land grabs and confiscations that make it much harder for them to pay their own way. D.C. holds the purse strings... so it seems right that they pay for what they've taken out of production.
No?
Give both Alaska and Utah back their property to develop and, as Palin said over and over and over, LET them contribute.
Ritmo's awfully hard on the tea partiers for not campaigning on the elimination of Social Security. What party do you belong to, Rit, that IS campaigning on this platform?
Re: Rit and Synova~
Also, to be fair, Washington DC is far and away the US subsidies leader, garnering more than TWICE those of Alaska per capita.
The shocking defeat...
Not at all shocking is that defeat, unless no attention has been paid at all--which, in turn, wouldn't shock me at all. People in general would prefer way more to pay homage than attention.
Just my observation; just my opinion.
For someone who claims not to be an ideologue, you sure seem to spend a lot of words defending people who have nothing but ideology to stand on.
I don't think the Tea Partiers are organized around a specific program, nor an ideology. They are organized around fear -- of the consequences of an enormous increase in indebtedness in the past couple of years.
People ask -- what about Bush? He ran deficits. Yes he did, but Obama not only added to them enormously, and wastefully, but he has committed this country to a course of ever-increasing debt. There are ideologues in the health care debate who think government shouldn't be taking this role, but I don't think that's where the TP's are. I think they're just saying, "We're out of money, and we're coming to the limit of what we can borrow. Good cause or bad cause, we can't keep spending this way." You're right that's not a program. But it's not nothing.
You apparently don't share this fear. Why not? Are the numbers not impressing you? Does Greece seem, like, really far away and foreign? Is the fact that California, New York and Illinois are all facing insolvency just a talking point to you?
The anti-incumbency of the TP movement is basically an effort to remove those who are stakeholders in the current spending orgy. They want to defend the deals that got them re-elected, and protect the recipients of taxpayer largesse. The idea is, "somebody new" won't have much baggage at the outset of their Washington careers, and can make cuts with the impunity that's needed.
You apparently don't share this fear.
I am concerned about what Obama's doing but not so fearful as to put more trust in an angry mob than in a relatively intelligent and well-intentioned man with clear leadership skills and a conscience with regard to the well-being of others, regard for effective government and a rational dialog of its policies.
The Mob, OTOH, is largely comprised of members of the same base that led the country to Bush. And Palin. Please. Their emotions comprise the movement that allowed the idiocy of Bush to the bully pulpit in the first place. Once Obama creates a disaster as profound as The Great Recession, then I'll entertain the possibility that the opposition was as right about him as they failed to be when someone should have been pushing the previous administration to avoid a real catastrophe, rather than the hypothetical one that they squawk about when they hold up signs of Obama as Hitler.
Until then, I will regard them in the same way I regarded the cranks who protested Bush in 2003. Iraq may or may not turn out to be a disaster. It was bungled (and wasted a lot of resources) but not irredeemably so. The Great Recession, OTOH, was a major fuck-up, the result of an abdication of leadership and lack of any vision.
I am not convinced that Tea Partiers have a better sense of vision than Obama does. As I stated earlier, I think that 16 years of Limbaugh-Gingrich-Rove have taught them, like Pavlovian dogs, to obsess about ideology and tactics at the expense of principled pragmatism, long-term strategy and the public good.
The lesson Bennett learned the hard way: If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
Ritmo:
The teabaggers are so mainstream. The haters just don't understand how practical their policy proposals are.
Because you rabid lefties are the mainstream ones? Keep dreaming.
"I think that 16 years of Limbaugh-Gingrich-Rove have taught them, like Pavlovian dogs,.."
Ain't that precious.
I note in passing that the libertarians, the New Party, the John Birchers, and the communists aren't catching such heaping shit load of flack from our lamest leftists, and from the left in general.
Why is that? I mean, if the tea partiers are silly and powerless and all that, I think any rational person would have to admit that all this cyber ink spilled is a bit strange. No?
As I stated earlier, I think that 16 years of Limbaugh-Gingrich-Rove have taught them, like Pavlovian dogs, to obsess about ideology and tactics at the expense of principled pragmatism, long-term strategy and the public good.
Translation: I, Ritmo Urban Legend, am a complete loser screaming into the void and no one listens to me or takes me seriously. Between you and me, I am forlorn and contemplating ending it all.
Sorry that you assumed I could answer a serious question with a serious answer unheeded, John. But as you can see with ski-mask above, a crank will always refuse to meet real concerns cogently stated with an honest response. In the insomniac Machos' case, he makes do with an extended insult with whatever poetic spin makes him sound (in his own mind) witty, while making dismissive comments about me.
The guy's an asshole who takes nothing seriously in life except his money. He has no other source of self-worth, so I'm not surprised that he vilely projects thoughts of suicide onto me. But he'll stand up for the Tea Partiers so as to shit on my honest response to you about what makes them less credible than they would like to believe.
I take John Stodder very seriously. He is hands-down the best commenter here and I wish to hell he'd show up more often when I show up.
Ritmo Urban Legend, if you the tea partiers are such a trifle, why do you waste so many words on them? Your words and actions are utterly diametrical. Can't you see that?
"I am concerned about what Obama's doing but not so fearful as to put more trust in an angry mob than in a relatively intelligent and well-intentioned man with clear leadership skills and a conscience with regard to the well-being of others, regard for effective government and a rational dialog of its policies."
This is so very un-democratic, isn't it, this preference for a single leader over the wisdom of the people in aggregate?
And such faint praise... relatively intelligent, well-meaning... I'm not going to give you "clear leadership skills" except to say that they are clear, and maybe I won't burst into laughter.
Lest you fuss about serious commentary not being taken seriously... I seriously think that a distrust of the rabble is an important indicator of... something.
Try this, Synova:
"I am concerned about what Bush is doing but not so fearful as to put more trust in an angry mob than in a relatively intelligent and well-intentioned man with clear leadership skills and a conscience with regard to the well-being of others, regard for effective government and a rational dialog of its policies."
How many nano-seconds would it take for leftists to respond to such a statement with charges of fascism and dictatorship?
"A trade-off between what and what, I wonder?"
The cost curve of health care expenditures as a proportion of GDP now as opposed to the future.
Well that's nice, Ritmo, but I was talking about our trillion-dollar deficit. None of which was (thus far) caused by ObamaCare.
As for bending the cost curve -- well, it is a beautiful dream, but it runs into the nasty reality that only Japan has ever achieved that dream. And ObamaCare looks little like the Japanese system.
Only at least the liberal version had interesting and imaginative ideas, rather than (just) a complete war on math and reality. And they weren't stuck in the past.
Sorry, I can't go through all the comments after this, but this defense of the hippies (especially the assertion waging a war on math and reality is okay if you're not CONSERVATIVE, or whatever) just got me giggling.
Keep it up Ritmo.
I am loving "relatively intelligent." When even Ritmo has had to give up on the Obama-is-smarter-than-God meme, the scales must truly be falling from everyone's eyes.
Bit late to the party but thought I'd throw this in regarding Social Security and other entitlement cuts.
Social Security has been cut. Many times. Reagan did it in the 80's - anyone born after 1960 doesn't get full retirement benefits until they're 67, among other adjustments. Google 'Social Security Notch' for another earlier adjustment to payouts.
Federal Welfare spending was totally revamped under Clinton.
W even got re-elected when talking about privatizing SS. Yes, it didn't get done and you can debate how serious he was about it. The Dems made it a center piece of their campaign against him and it couldn't drag Kerry's sorry ass over the line.
Obamacare just made major changes to Medicare, though the severity of those changes has yet to be felt.
It is really ahistoric to claim that federal entitlements go on forever.
"That the Tea Party would consider Bob Bennett -- one of the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate -- too liberal just goes to show how extreme the Tea Party is."
Liberal, conservative, who gives a f*ck? He spent too much money. Do these guys really not get it?
Ritmo complaining about being too "vague in their message to amount to much of anything" is laughable when we consider that the primary message of the winner in 2008 was "Change" (sometimes coupled with "you can believe in") or "Yes We Can".
Pot, meet kettle.
Of course had Obama campaigned on his less vague proposals that Ritmo demands of everyone else, and which are being shown as strongly opposed by a majority of Americans, he'd have lost. Soundly.
And why should anyone care what Tim Kaine says about a Republican Primary? Should I care what Karl Rove thinks about who wins the Democratic primary to run against Paul Ryan?
Honest analysis of the race results would be interesting. No way in Hell will Tim Kaine give that.
I especially liked Ritmo's commentary when he stopped calling Tea Partiers "teabaggers" after he got all pissy about being told to suck someone's balls. It's funny Ritmo, up until that point I thought you liked sucking balls!
Ritmo's commentary is representative of the extreme left's abject fear of the Tea Party and what its hastening of their crumbling empire.
Ritmo, you and your fellow whackjobs need to conjure up a better defense because screaming about racism, Palin, Fox news, and "outsiders" isn't cutting it for you fringe lefties.
I especially liked Ritmo's commentary when he stopped calling Tea Partiers "teabaggers" after he got all pissy about being told to suck someone's balls. It's funny Ritmo, up until that point I thought you liked sucking balls!
Ritmo's commentary is representative of the extreme left's abject fear of the Tea Party and its hastening of their empire's crumbling.
Ritmo, you and your fellow whackjobs need to conjure up a better defense because screaming about racism, Palin, Fox news, and "outsiders" isn't cutting it for you fringe lefties.
What does "anti-RINOism" in California have to do with the defeat of a conservative Republican in Utah?
If successful, the fringe element Tea Partiers' desire to make over the Republican Party in their own image will assure the success of the Democratic Party.
"And why should anyone care what Tim Kaine says about a Republican Primary? Should I care what Karl Rove thinks about who wins the Democratic primary to run against Paul Ryan?
Honest analysis of the race results would be interesting. No way in Hell will Tim Kaine give that."
Excellent post. It's almost humorous how people from one party have all this great advice for the other...as if they are genuinely concerned about its wellbeing.
Ritmo actually believes that Obamacare is going to "bend the cost curve" down.
By covering so many who are currently uninsured, overall health care spending will have to go up. But a country with universal health care, Austria, spends 10.6% of GDP on health care, while the US spends 17.6% of GDP on health care. Thus considerable savings are possible with universal health care.
as if they are genuinely concerned about its wellbeing.
I can't speak for others, but I am a registered Republican and have been for years.
Fortunately for the country, Obama lacks common sense.
To deal with our current crises, the country needs a leader with uncommon sense.
fls lies to himself: "If successful, the fringe element Tea Partiers' desire to make over the Republican Party in their own image will assure the success of the Democratic Party."
Are you saying the Tea Partiers are fringe or that there's a fringe element in the Tea Party?
Either way, considerin that there's a significant Democrat element to the rather mainstream makeup of the Tea Party, I'd like to see you support your blind assertion.
Perhaps I'm wrong here, but I think if you distilled the American voters down, the average is someone who is relatively liberal socially and relatively conservative financially.
Democrat voters tend to view the socially liberal part as more important. The problem being Democrat politicians pay lip service to social liberal policies (gay marriage) and spend most of their time on financially liberal issues (obamacare, nationalizing businesses, cap and tax).
Republican voters tend to view the financially conservative part as more important. The problem being Republican politicians pay lip service to financially conservative policies (reducing spending, heard of that GOP? Lowering taxes, shrinking government) and spend the bulk of their time on socially conservative issues.
I think the Tea Party cuts both ways and the entrenched, blue blood GOP has just as much if not more to fear from the Tea Party as the Democrats do. Don't think I'm your friend just because we're both registered as Republicans. Don't think I'm your enemy just because you're a registered Democrat.
I think someone here sucks Obama's balls.
wv= ecuss
fls types a coffee spewer: "I can't speak for others, but I am a registered Republican and have been for years."
This is either the worst concern trolling I've ever seen, or you're lying your ass off.
Why is it that Dems and Reps can expand the government, but attempts at shrinking it are met with claims that it's impossible?
You must read Parkinson's Law, by C. Northcote Parkinson, he who observed that work expands to fill the time available. Studying the British Admiralty, he commented that:
What we have to note is that the 2,000 Admiralty officials of 1914 had become the 3,569 of 1928; and that this growth was unrelated to any possible increase in their work. The Navy during that period had diminished, in point of fact, by a third in men and two-thirds in ships. Nor, from 1922 onwards, was its strength even expected to increase, for its total of ships (unlike its total of officials) was limited by the Washington Naval Agreement of that year. Yet in these circumstances we had a 78.45 percent increase in Admiralty officials over a period of fourteen years; an average increase of 5.6 percent a year on the earlier total.
At the time of publication, Parkinson noted that the British Colonial Office had the most bureaucrats at the time when it had the fewest colonies to administer.
fls: "By covering so many who are currently uninsured, overall health care spending will have to go up. But a country with universal health care, Austria, spends 10.6% of GDP on health care, while the US spends 17.6% of GDP on health care. Thus considerable savings are possible with universal health care."
This is a classic up-is-down, left-is-right post.
You need the basic financial counseling where someone explains to you that checks in the checkbook don't necessarily mean you have money or that a line of credit doesn't mean you have free money.
You can thank me later.
fls: "To deal with our current crises, the country needs a leader with uncommon sense."
You really should stick to these sorts of platitudes.
Are you saying the Tea Partiers are fringe or that there's a fringe element in the Tea Party?
Any group of Americans who feel exercised enough about politics to rally in the streets are on the fringe. The Tea Partiers are the right-wing equivalent of the no-blood-for-oilers, the tree-sitters, or the tuition-hike protesters.
Perhaps I'm wrong here, but I think if you distilled the American voters down, the average is someone who is relatively liberal socially and relatively conservative financially.
That would make the average American voter a Libertarian, so the assertion is incorrect.
I can't speak for others, but I am a registered Republican and have been for years.
Yea....and I'm the Queen of Sheba.
fls floats another whopper: "Any group of Americans who feel exercised enough about politics to rally in the streets are on the fringe."
I know you're trying to up your Repub cred now with the "no blood for oiler" comment, but I don't think "fringe" means what you think it means big guy. But I do like your defense of blind assertions with more blind assertions though.
Pretty snazzy.
You need the basic financial counseling
I'll try to bring it down to GMay's level:
On a GDP basis,
Austria spends roughly half as much
to cover everybody
as the US does
to cover a lesser number (estimates vary).
If tiny Austria can do it, we can too. Unless Austria is a country of supermen -- possible but I think Schwarzenegger "just plays one on TV."
Queen of Sheba, I hope you're planning to vote for RINO Tom Campbell, so we can replace Barbara Boxer in the Senate.
fls evades logic once again: "I'll try to bring it down to GMay's level:"
Slow down and read your own misfire champ:
"overall health care spending will have to go up."
and a couple of lines down you say:
"savings are possible."
I was wrong. I think you need the basic you're-not-saving-money-just-because-you-bought-it-on-sale class.
We have to spend more so we can save. Up is down sport, up is down.
"Obama needs uncommon sense". Good one FLS if you were trying to make a joke.
I hope you're planning to vote for RINO Tom Campbell, so we can replace Barbara Boxer in the Senate.
I don't know much about Campbell yet, but I would vote for a ham sandwich to replace Boxer.
FLS: Any group of Americans who feel exercised enough about politics to rally in the streets are on the fringe.
Wow. Libtard thinks protesting marks you as an extremist. On the fringe. Radical.
Someone wake me when we start shooting marxist pigs.
I hope you're planning to vote for RINO Tom Campbell,
RINO is not apt in describing Campbell. He has never concealed the fact that he is a social liberal. But, at least as far as I have seen, he is as fiscally conservative, perhaps more so, than supposedly "authentic" Republicans. In CA, unfortunately, the state's active Republicans mostly would sell fiscal solvency down the river in exchange for yet more futile posturing against gay marriage and abortion.
We have to spend more so we can save.
That's not what I'm saying.
Our current system is grossly costly compared to systems in other countries.
Adding people to our grossly costly system will initially cost more.
But other countries demonstrate that tremendous savings are possible.
What others have done, we can do.
My grandma was raised Mormon. Her family, while obviously socially conservative, were Roosevelt Democrats on economic matters.
Most young Mormons nowadays are fiscal conservatives as well as social conservatives, and good allies to have, but among the older generation there is a certain number of big government lovers. That's were we get the likes of Bob Bennett, Harry Reid, the Udalls, and the Romneys.
@fls - Your analysis is absurdly reductionist. You can't just assume that the reason Austria spends less than the U.S. on healthcare is that Austria has "universal coverage" and the U.S. doesn't. There are any number of historical, cultural, demographic and structural reasons that the U.S. spends more that government heathcare policy can't and won't address.
The fact is that heathcare spending as % of GDP will only increase as Obamacare mandates all manner of new "minimum" coverages to everyone's health insurance. Yes, you're paying an extra $400 a month for health insurance, but your next trip to an Indian sweat lodge will fully covered at no cost to you!
Ritmo;
Since you're concerned about the "cost curve" please refer to this (PDF, see graph on second page right side.)
As you can see no county in this report (US, Australia and much of western Europe) is bending the curve. And I would wager that many have a health system more too your liking.
"I don't know much about Campbell yet, but I would vote for a ham sandwich to replace Boxer."
That's all well and good but stay away from the "Newham" sandwich. Just Sayn'
As you can see no county in this report (US, Australia and much of western Europe) is bending the curve
Excellent illustration of my point. The other countries don't need to bend the cost curve. The US has conspicuously broken away from the pack, and our rate of divergence is getting greater and greater.
Other countries -- all with universal health care -- have their health care costs far more tightly controlled than does the US.
There are things that American individuals can do to bring health care costs down, as our greater rate of bypass surgery and diabetes indicate.
Ritmo's commentary is representative of the extreme left's abject fear of the Tea Party and its hastening of their empire's crumbling.
You are not good at reading me. Many things I am passionate about. Many emotions may animate my emotions besides fear.
Perhaps for you that is not the case.
Ritmo, you and your fellow whackjobs need to conjure up a better defense because screaming about racism, Palin, Fox news, and "outsiders" isn't cutting it for you fringe lefties.
This is not done for political effect, GMay.
Perhaps you, too, are capable of making a point w/r/t a political phenomenon without doing so for merely political effect.
Then again, maybe you aren't.
Calling me a "fringe lefty" is more than a little precious. It says something about how skewed your perspective must be.
Calling me a "fringe lefty" is more than a little precious.
This is the same logic that generates comments such as If you think she's ugly you should see ___________
There is ALWAYS someone richer, smarter, faster, further to the left...
Ritmo,
See: denial.
GMay: See proof by assertion. See the substitution of opinions and tastes for facts and arguments.
I see Ritmo found his thesaurus.
"What does "anti-RINOism" in California have to do with the defeat of a conservative Republican in Utah?"
If successful, the fringe element Tea Partiers' desire to make over the Republican Party in their own image will assure the success of the Democratic Party.
Uh huh... so, tell me. What are the "fringe" beliefs of the Tea Party movement? Spend and tax less? Ooh, fringey. :)
Excellent illustration of my point. The other countries don't need to bend the cost curve. The US has conspicuously broken away from the pack, and our rate of divergence is getting greater and greater.
This illustrates your point if your point is that emulating Europe will cause us to be bankrupted by medical expenses slightly later than we otherwise would have been.
But that's pretty much the problem. The absolutely best-case scenario for ObamaCare is that it will change our health care costs from "runaway" to "slightly less runaway". A gazillion-dollar healthcare takeover, and the rosiest possible outcome is that we're still doomed.
It might have been more intelligence to try something different instead of emulating a system we already know isn't sustainable.
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