Mad_Machine76
Mad_Machine76's JournalAren't they always complaining about the President not having a plan?
Of course, I don't think that they were ever really serious about this whole endeavor anyway and have been looking for an "escape hatch" from day one so that they could make it seem like they are doing something productive- to attract Hispanic voters- and to (eventually) "save face" with their base by bailing and blaming President Obama. I bet that this is it for them.
Hopefully, people will remember their civics lessons
and remember that something can't become law without Congress passing it first and, last I checked, the Republicans in the House, including its leadership, all voted for it, so they are all at least equally culpable and if they didn't like the idea that Lew ultimately proposed, they could've rejected it and left it out. 
I have yet to hear somebody in the corporate media (though I admittedly don't watch much so maybe I'm wrong) mention that we wouldn't even be here if the Republicans had insisted on holding the debt ceiling hostage in order to extract massive spending cuts in the first place.
They are clearly banking on winning the resulting blame game. Hope it backfires horribly on them.
More Lies/Distortions/Hypocrisy:
1. He participated in the effort to hold the debt ceiling "hostage" in 2011 that led to the eventual passage of the BCA. IMHO we wouldn't even be talking about a "sequester" if they had just raised the debt ceiling without demanding concessions for doing so.
2. He voted for the BCA as did most Republicans at the time. Those whom didn't refused largely b/c it didn't go FAR ENOUGH
3. The "Super Committee" went nowhere, largely b/c Republicans refused to agree to any new revenues
4. President Obama has put forward several proposals to cut spending but all of them were reflexively rejected by Republicans
5. The sequester was never really meant to happen in the first place. It was meant to be a leverage tool
6. Boehner is not working on any new proposals to eliminate/replace the sequester and has now abdicated his leadership role to the Senate
7. The sequester could easily be eliminated with a quick bill but see #6
Republicans have now basically decided to let the sequester happen and bank on President Obama and Democrats bearing the brunt of the fallout thereof, hence all of the current spin and maneuvering.
People that hate "Obamacare" can't be reasoned with either
I get the left-wing/progressive criticisms of it as they are grounded in some reality about some of the limitations about the law but right-wing criticisms are little more than scaremongering about things that are (likely) not going to happen or at least could easily be fixed if necessary. What I keep hearing from them is how "Obamacare" is such a terrible affront to personal liberty and represent government tyranny even though most of the people complaining about it already have health insurance coverage (sometimes great insurance coverage) and wouldn't be affected at all by the mandate anyway. They seem to represent this really selfish "I've got mine, FU!" attitude that represents the worst of humanity and lack of concern about other people. Plus, they have no alternatives that would help more people gain coverage and, as NPR reported sometime last year, they aren't even really concerned about affordable health coverage anymore (if they ever were). They just want to get rid of "Obamacare" and basically go back to the way things were.
Right
When I first started hearing Bush, Cheney, et. al talk about going to war in Iraq starting in August 2002, I remember my first reaction as being:
Nothing said after that point changed my mind either. I had initially hoped that Powell, if anybody, would talk Bush down at the last moment but, no, he signed onto the neocon plans even though we now know that he had sincere doubts about the endeavor. When it finally appeared inevitable that it was going to happen no matter what, I began hoping that maybe I was wrong or that I had overlooked something because I lacked the intelligence reports that Bush, Cheney, et. al had. Turns out that, nope, I hadn't. No WMD and certainly no "threat" to the US or anybody outside of Iraq. Simple as that.
Schools everywhere are cutting out important subjects left and right
but the GOP wants to mandate gun classes?
Sounds like they're willing to let the sequester happen
and hang it around Democrats and President Obama IMHO. We're already seeing it with their laying of the blame entirely of Jack Lew. Of course, there has been relatively little mention (if any?) about the fact that 1/2 of Congress controlled by Republicans voted for the BCA and Boehner's infamous "98%" comment once the BCA was signed. Of course, nobody has mentioned either the fact that the whole reason the BCA was proposed/passed was because the Republicans instigated the "crisis" that led to the adoption of the BCA by holding the debt ceiling hostage. That was THEIR idea, plain and simple! And none of those sequester "alternatives" put forward by the House were bipartisan efforts that could reasonably have been expected to pass the Senate and are now moot anyway. Had Romney won and the Senate was controlled by Republicans, the sequester would've been dead as a doornail by now. They seem to want the sequester to happen at this point and believe that they will win the spin/blame war. Forced to listen to Fox News for about an hour yesterday, they were in full-bore propaganda mode talking about the dire consequences for our military and their families (cue pictures of heartwarming troop homecomings that might not happen b/c of the sequester ), as well as how the sequester would injure our training and recruitment efforts and extend deployments of soldiers in Afghanistan. They also had David Frum (I believe) on later decrying that President Obama is out and about talking to citizens and trying to win public support for his policies instead of working with Congress. What I did to deserve having to be stuck waiting for my wife's oil change listening to Fox News I have no idea.
Had the election gone the "right" way for the Republicans and they now have WH & Senate
The sequester would've already been replaced with the Republican "alternative"/eliminated in short order IMHO. As I recall, they were all geared up for "tax reform" if they had the WH and both chambers in Congress. Even if they didn't win the Senate, the Dems probably would've probably accepted the Republican "alternative" for the cliff/sequester or something like it. The Bush tax cuts- as they previously were- would probably still be law as well IMHO. Let's be thankful we never had to worry about it!
Standing for "truth" and "objective reality" don't sound all that exciting for teabagger types
but it seems like their only "goal" is victory (i.e. destroying government) at all costs, even if it means eating their own.
Reminds me of this exchange from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock between Kirk and Admiral Morrow:
Morrow: " Jim! Your life and your career stand for rationality, not intellectual chaos. Keep up this emotional behavior and you'll lose everything. You'll destroy yourself!
He might as well be trying to lecture the modern-day Republican Party on the "intellectual chaos" they've already apparently embraced and is destroying them IMHO
They've really reached the point- thanks to 2010 midterms-where they're largely "winning" by numbers
but not by ideas/policies (outside of the south and some western states).
Profile Information
Name: Mara Alis ButlerGender: Female
Hometown: Indianapolis, Indiana
Home country: USA
Current location: Indianapolis, Indiana
Member since: Sat Feb 28, 2004, 01:13 AM
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