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The Budding Self-Immolation Of The Democrats
Gosling
Looking Up Soccer In Mongolia Right Now, ProbablyWatertown, WIRegistered User regular
Looking Up Soccer In Mongolia Right Now, ProbablyWatertown, WIRegistered User regular
Because, really. Aren't we at this point? (We are of course assuming a largely Democratic/Democratic caucusing audience.)
The GOP is not the only party imploding. They have their teabaggers, we have Blue Dogs. They're pissed at their moderates, we're pissed at ours. They have ineffective party leadership, we are increasingly warming to a similar conclusion. (Oh, Rahm Emanuel. How we thought you so lovable just three short years ago. Or one short year ago, really. How you endeared us to you by mailing some dude a dead fish.)
They're at risk of long-term electoral implosion, we're at risk of short-term electoral implosion.
So what the fuck happened? What the fuck is going on? And more importantly, what the fuck are we going to do about it and if you say stay home I will strangle you through the Internet. Obviously, the healthcare bill tore the rift open, and specifically the loss of the public option, but now that it's open, we have to figure out how to deal with it.
ALTERNATE 'LOLDEM' OP:
Obama signed a bill into law Wednesday with a typo in it.
Yes, that's right. Carry a gun onto Amtrak and you get to ride in a box. Who's the weenie dilletante now, bitches?
The GOP is not the only party imploding. They have their teabaggers, we have Blue Dogs. They're pissed at their moderates, we're pissed at ours. They have ineffective party leadership, we are increasingly warming to a similar conclusion. (Oh, Rahm Emanuel. How we thought you so lovable just three short years ago. Or one short year ago, really. How you endeared us to you by mailing some dude a dead fish.)
They're at risk of long-term electoral implosion, we're at risk of short-term electoral implosion.
So what the fuck happened? What the fuck is going on? And more importantly, what the fuck are we going to do about it and if you say stay home I will strangle you through the Internet. Obviously, the healthcare bill tore the rift open, and specifically the loss of the public option, but now that it's open, we have to figure out how to deal with it.
ALTERNATE 'LOLDEM' OP:
Obama signed a bill into law Wednesday with a typo in it.
Fox News wrote:Harry Houdini made a career escaping from locked boxes. So did David Copperfield and Doug Henning.
And now, add to that list Amtrak passengers packing heat in their luggage?
It may sound absurd. But President Obama signed a bill into law Wednesday that requires passengers who carry firearms aboard Amtrak be locked in boxes for their journey.
It's a mistake in the law's wording. But for now, the clerical error is the law of the land.
Earlier this week, Congress sent the president a massive spending bill that funded dozens of federal departments. Tucked into the transportation section of the legislation are safety requirements for Amtrak customers who carry firearms on board the government-backed train system. The bill Congress passed mandates that passengers with firearms declare they have weapons with them in advance and stow them in locked boxes while on the train.
The bill text was correct when the House approved the legislation last week. The Senate followed suit Sunday, but somewhere along the line, the language that referred to putting the guns in locked boxes morphed into stuffing "passengers" into locked boxes.
Aides to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., became aware of the problem Wednesday night as the House voted on its final slate of bills for the year. Pelosi's staff tried to negotiate with Republican aides to see if they would agree to change the text of the bill without revoting the entire piece of legislation. But it was all for naught as Obama had already signed the measure into law.
It's clear the typo alters the legislation's mandate. But no one quite knows the origin of the mistake.
Senior Congressional sources familiar with the error suggested the problem may have been introduced in the "enrolling" process of bills. Once both the House and Senate approve the final version of a bill, the text of the legislation is sent to an "enrolling clerk" who actually copies the bill onto parchment paper. The parchment version of the package is then sent to the White House for the president to sign into law.
Another theory is that the mistake could be something as simple as a printing error. The House and Senate run multiple versions of bills before they send the final copy to the White House to become law. Another possibility is that Congress sent President Obama the wrong, non-proofed version of the bill to sign.
The misfire is fixable. But probably not until early next year. The House late Wednesday completed what it expects to be its final session of the year. The Senate remains in session debating health care reform. But both the House and Senate would have to agree to a technical correction of the text that missed its mark.
The law, though, states that Amtrak has six months to implement the policy. So it's unlikely that any gun-toting passengers would have to travel in a box.
The error is reminiscent of $289 billion farm bill President Bush vetoed in May, 2008. In that instance, both houses of Congress inadvertently sent Bush an incomplete bill, leaving out a 35-page chunk. The president then vetoed an incomplete bill. Congress discovered the error when lawmakers attempted to override the president's veto.
In that case, House re-passed the entire farm bill and overrode Bush's veto.
"This bill is one of the most-passed bills we've done," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., quipped at the time.
The rules to allow Amtrak passengers to carry weapons with them are new. Airline passengers have long been permitted to transport weapons in checked luggage. But Amtrak banned firearms from its trains after Sept. 11. Only police officers are now allowed to board Amtrak trains with guns.
Rep. John Fleming and Sen. Roger Wicker, both Mississippi Republicans, are the primary advocates of the Amtrak gun provision.
Yes, that's right. Carry a gun onto Amtrak and you get to ride in a box. Who's the weenie dilletante now, bitches?
I have a new soccer blog The Minnow Tank. Reading it psychically kicks Sepp Blatter in the bean bag.
Gosling on
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It's not so much ignoring the base that's the problem, as that since the reagan revolution kicking the base is a thing that outright helped most democrats. The way you proved you were a serious politician was by explicitly and publicly screwing the base, who had nowhere else to go and shoudl be damn happy you weren't screwing them worse.
I was being nice!
Well, for forum coherency sake. Man, we once had threads called 'Rap Law' and 'Rape Law' going at the same time.
Fair enough.
Right now, the only thing that's really pissing me off about the Democrats is their ball dropping on the Healthcare stuff (which we have a thread for).
This should be entertaining, if nothing else.
This thread, unfortunately, is not premature. I think the GOP is doing way more dumb stuff (politically) than the democrats, but the democrats strategy of "make our tent as big as possible and party discipline be damned" has begun to backfire. Hopefully we learn from this.
I'm even looking forward to 2010 now. We can primary some of the douchebags and maybe make it clear that if you want to be a democrat you have to actually vote for stuff in the democratic platform.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Demographic trends are deeply troubling to every GOP elected official who plans on still being in public office in 15 years.
For more, go see the GOP thread.
The republicans have backed off their big tent strategy and are now towing the base and look how that's worked out.
I'd rather have a less effectual party with some actual debate over ideas in it, then one that marches lock step to their base.
Here's my question: How should have Obama handled the Health Care fiasco?
What could he have done better, and what do you think he got right?
the GOPs demographics are waning and their inability to appeal to minorities and young people is very bad in the long term
I dont see how a larger tent actually inhibits governing, unless obstructionists with no principles are being elected in place of principled politicians (oxymoron :P ). Unless you are saying that the larger tent is actually precluding the better individuals from winning the primaries.
Also, I could see the whitehouse planning on trying to govern by concesus as much as possible while they have the theoretical supermajority, then once they are below 60, push everything through reconciliation since it doesnt have a chance otherwise anyways.
MWO: Adamski
Edit - I shouldn't say "we" since I try to not identify with any party.
Those aren't the only two choices, you can focus more on party discipline but still not be as strict as the GOP.
Answering that question in detail would derail the thread, but there are possibilities galore on the health care thread. It's worth noting that Obama hasn't really "handled" health care debate at all, the white house has been mostly hands off.
And calling the blue dogs "moderates" IMO gives then a legitimacy they don't deserve.
"It's too bad the base is going to punish him for it because it's not vicious (read: petty) enough" - I don't follow what this sentence means. What does "it" refer to in "it's not vicious enough"?
Pretty much that Obama doesn't seem to realize that, regardless of the fact that politics isn't supposed to be a football game, the GOP is sure acting like it is, and while they're lining up Jack Tatum, Obama's bringing flowers to the line of scrimmage.
This is a damning analogy but I don't see how it relates to anything. If politics isn't a football game we shouldn't treat it like one regardless of what the GOP thinks.
So, we're bringing flowers and bongos, they're bringing guns, which do you think it's going to end up being: drum circle, or gun fight?
I guess my analogy of choice would be, the democrats think its a drum circle, and the GOP is just running around in circles babbling incoherently.
Really, we couldn't ask for a more incompetent opposition as of right now. Maybe the GOP will be dangerous later, but not right now. The democrats problems right now are internal IMO, not partisan.
Really, Yougottawanna, the GOP is in some sort of vicious opposition. They may be dumb, but they know enough to know what they don't like and they retain enough punching power to make a gigantic hassle of themselves.
I think their strategy is dangerous to the country, but to their party, not really. If things don't get better, and there is a good chance, ride the wave of frustration to pick up power. If things do get better it's going to be bad for them. From a political standpoint it's stupid not to be obstructionist.
That's not all that brainless. A good portion of people are no longer Republicans because they weren't conservative enough. And a good portion of independents, and moderate Democrats, are former Republicans that were put off by Bush. If they double down on the base their numbers could grow, and the independents/moderates are up for grabs come election time largely based on the economy, worrying about them now is pointless.
The GOP has a clear message, even if it is a rather silly one. But you know where they stand. The Democrats on the other hand can't make up their party line on health care, Afghanistan, what to do about the economy. It's hard to tell what the Democrats want, and it changes every day, the GOP is clear on what they don't want.
Agreed.
I'd say the GOP is causing a problem.
Doubling down on the base and hoping to grab moderates in the leadup to the election are goals that work at cross purposes. Whatever candidate can get enough hardline support to win the primary is not likely to appeal to moderates (the obvious example here is the presumptive "if the primary was held tomorrow" frontrunner Sarah Palin. I can't imagine her winning a general election even if the economy is in the toilet when it happens). They've already run into this problem in NY 23.
The GOP's message may be clear in some cases but I don't see what they're going to run on. Pro-life and pro-gun alone won't win you a general election. They're pro big business, but they only use that plank to raise funds, they don't really stump on it. And after that who knows what they think, especially if they continue to court the tea partiers, whose "message" is basically incomprehensible.
Saying something like "I'm not worried about the GOP" does sound like famous last words I know, but the usual assumption of GOP=evil DNC=incompetent isn't holding for me at the moment. Right now I think DNC=incompetent, GOP=batshit. They still have hardline rhetoric, but hardline rhetoric is a means to an end, not an end in itself. They have no meaningful political power at the moment and I don't see how they're going to get any.
Edit: when I say "meaningful" political power, I mean the ability to get their platform put into law. Obviously they have the ability to gum up the works.
Well, while it is, the point is more on the supermajority being fucked by specific individuals.
Certainly, but way less of a problem than they used to be and I see the overall trajectory of their influence as pointed downwards.
Both independents now, Sanders is against the thing.
I think an even better example would be the Dem's bringing flowers and bongos, the Republicans bringing firearms and neither realizing that they are supposed to be [strike]ballroom dancing[/strike] playing chess. Or something.
The thing is that the people who are doing it ONLY want to win and do what they want. They will use whatever party identification is required to get there, and they will fuck over the entire world if it helps them do so.
Wait, wait, no, the Dems are bringing a crate-load of hairless cats and the Pubs are smearing themselves in Crisco and dancing a polka and meanwhile it's raining frogs and the independents all have umbrellas made of toothpicks am I doing this right
and if he doesn't can some people finally agree that he's just another one of the blue dogs and his intentions aren't and never were anywhere near progressive
I'm already there.
You know that chart of how filibusters have skyrocketed? Well, in case you were wondering how this Congress is doing, so far there have been 36 cloture votes- essentially, 36 filibusters.
The Dems have beaten back 32 of them. Historically, that's a downright insane winning percentage.
BONUS FUN FACT: In 1995-96, the aftermath of the Republican Revolution, there were 50 filibusters. Only 9 were broken.