Probably because the House Republicans’ Continuing Resolution didn’t pass until 4:30 in the morning, and because it is the weekend, the White House has not yet released an analysis of the impacts of the spending cuts on various programs, departments, initiatives, and the overall economy. However, a look at some of the amendments that passed indicates that there will be plenty of fodder for absolutely drilling the Republicans in the next election and throughout the upcoming debate and probable government shutdown.
They’ve basically destroyed public broadcasting. They’ve completely ignored Robert Gates’s warning that their cuts to the State Department will turn Iraq into Afghanistan circa the mid-1990’s. They’ve gutted the EPA, cut their funding, prohibited them from regulating greenhouse gasses or polluting cement factories. They’ve prohibited the FCC from enforcing Net Neutrality. They’ve eliminated all funding for Planned Parenthood. They’ve slashed NASA’s budget. They’ve banned the (wholly voluntary) use of public funds for presidential campaigns or party conventions. They have prohibited “funds from being used by the Environmental Appeals Board to block air pollution permits required for offshore drilling projects along the Arctic Coast.” They have denied funding to implement the health care law. They’ve barred “funding to enforce regulations published by the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation.” They’ve prohibited “funding to implement new Florida Water Quality Standards” and stripped money to protect the Chesapeake Watershed. They’ve prohibited “funds from being to be used by the EPA to revoke a permit under the Clean Water Act,” and “funding EPA waivers for ethanol content of gasoline.” They have prevented the Consumer Product Safety Commission from creating a consumer product safety information database.
It goes on and on. It’s like a Koch Brother’s wet dream. It’s the most extreme anti-environmental series of amendments imaginable, but it’s so much more.
And the Republicans should have learned from their success that voting for stuff that can be painted as radical that never becomes law is a recipe for a short political career.
The GOP is really stepping in it now. Did they really want the 2012 election season to start this early? Boo, Did Gerlach vote for it all?
If we’re headed for a government shutdown why isn’t the President getting ahead of the Republicans in setting the narrative?
I’m worried that we’ll help pass some of these things and then never try to roll them back.
What freaks me out is that the Senate and the WH will cave in the name of bipartianship crap. I simply do not trust anyone except for a few senators to stand up and say no way–or Obama either.
WE. ARE. SCREWED. BIG TIME.
If any of this garbage is passed into law, we need a Wisconsin in Washington DC.
I don’t want to see compromise on any of this shit. None of the bipartisany crap that we’ve had for the past two years. I don’t want to see any Democrats even talk about voting for this or that because they are “moderate”.
But just watch the big cave-in in the Senate. Unless what is going on in Madison begins to be bigger than it currently is.
I’m not sanguine about the GOP shortening their political careers over this. They have too much money and media that can spin it as moderate and what existed as radical. Remember our Kenya-born Muslim president who hates white people.
Of course it’s a Koch brothers wet dream. Guess who bought them fair and square.
Now, tell me. Who is the “we” who is going to blast them for this?
Who is the “we” who is going to blast them for this?
My question exactly. Obama? NOT. Tim Kaine? NOT. Joe Biden? MAYBE. Sunday talk show guests? NOT. MSNBC hosts Schultz, Maddow, Cenk. MOST LIKELY but not to a huge audience unfortunately. The folks that really need to step up is the heads of all these agencies like NPR, EPA, Planned Parenthood, FCC et al and lay out in simple terms how these cuts will affect average Americans. They need to be plastered all over TV, blogs, letters to editors.
I’m not holding my breath. What we’ll see is a tepid response from the WH and Harry Reid.
So basically it’s been a big sloppy wet kiss to their industry sponsors and the holy rollers.
They don’t care and they’re letting it all hang out. They think they can lie with impunity and be fundamentally not serious. And why shouldn’t they? They’ve got their own media reality, plus they see blow-with-the-wind princesses like Klein and Sullivan getting pumped up about crushing unions and gutting social services.
Game on.
We have no game. Hell, we have no players or our own network. I was hoping Keith O. would start his own network like Oprah did. Our Fox News. I’m not sure Current TV will get a big audience for him and it is not even offered in alot of cable and satellite services.
I would not say we have no game. We have been given a game in Madison, Wisconsin. If you know folks in Wisconsin who could help boost the numbers there into the hundreds of thousands, it would help our game immensely. That game also exists in Columbus, Ohio. They need numbers there too.
In one sense, if we can turn out big numbers we need no media. We have our personal networks that can get the word out. (Facebook and Twitter only facilitate that; the key is the wide-ranging personal networks).
The game right now is to get the middle class to the streets. And not just the same old easily dismissible progressive faces in small numbers on minor street corners. In the midwest, the attack on public unions will turn folks out. And having lots of folks out is key to dealing with folks who are job scared, afraid of riots, just afraid to act.
When the contents of the Republican cuts become widely known, other parts of the country might become engaged.
But the game is to make the Tea Party movement look like the miniscule bunch of paid activists they were.
The term is “petition for redress of grievances”.
is to get the middle class to the streets
yup but this is the problem. Wisconsin needs to go national and we need to get up off the couch and just do it. I just moved to CA and I see zip here with the unions. I would like to think that unions all over the country should hold rallies in solidarity with our Wisconsin brothers and sisters at least in states other than Ohio. Wonder why the big unions aren’t mobilizing nationwide?
It’s a good question but listen to Tarheel. We can’t insist that the institutions of the past, however important at times-like various forms of media or union organizations or campaigns for the environment or whatever-accomplish our common goals.
For instance, the Egyptian resistance didn’t need a tv personality to cheer it on. The right wing needs that sort of predictably distracting entertainment for its base, so it spends lavishly on marketing. We don’t need that.
I’m totally with Tarheel: we have to stop thinking we have to beat them at their game, which belief is ultimately a kind of mass hypnosis of the “inevitable” majority.
The public unions in California are not under threat because Jerry Brown is the governor.
About unions not mobilizing nationwide, contact your local AFSCME, SEIU, or NEA branch and see what they are doing in support. They might be working quietly through their membership instead of publicly.
The issues driving Wisconsin have not surfaced as national issues because folks haven’t made the connections:
(1) The Citizens United case allowed rich conservatives to funnel money into buying not just the federal elections (House) but also state (like Wisconsin) and local (like Wake County NC school board) elections. And out-of-state billionaires (the Koch brothers) are driving issues wherever their money got someone elected. The operative organizations are Americans for Progress, American Legislative Exchange Council, Club for Growth, Civitas, John Locke Foundation, Heritage Foundation, FreedomWorks, and a bunch that Karl Rove put together.
(2) The media narrative about what is going on in Wisconsin is fundamentally dishonest; the issue is about union collective bargaining rights; the budget shortfall was engineered in January by none other than Scott Walker; it is phony.
(3) Deficits cannot be solved by spending cuts; only an increase in the number and value of jobs can get us out of the government deficit spiral.
(4) Republicans are using the deficit spiral to drown government (federal, state, local) in a bathtub.
The political process has been so corrupted that neither government nor the private sector can make informed decisions anymore. And Scott Walker is a poster boy for that corruption. And so is John Kasich, Chris Christie, and especially Rick Scott.
AFL-CIO contact info for state and local labor councils.
AFSCME
SEIU (requires an e-mail address for action updates)
NEA The NEA is, by far, the place to go for action alerts and action everyone can take now, either from home or at Madison. Lot of good info and links.
If you’re the median member of the house GOP caucus, I suspect you fear being primaried if you don’t go along with this than you do of having to defend this in the general in 2012. I think the brilliance of movement conservatives taking over the GOP is that now have a caucus that doesn’t really care about the fall out from a shutdown. Compared to the guys that came in in 94 (think guys like Joe Scarborough) these guys are far more radical. The only hope is for Obama to win the politics of the shutdown, and find ways to bring the pain of the shutdown on the gop’s true backers : the rich and the corporations. If I’m boehner and McConnell, I like my odds. Other than the lame duck, Obama doesn’t have many other clean political wins.
As usual Obama will be blamed for a shutdown and grandma not getting her ss check. And the dems messaging sucks so bad that the rethugs will get away with blaming him. And it will become a 24/7 news story with Obama being the bad guy as usual.
Remember-it’s always Obama’s fault. Because he won’t compromise. Right. And he’s SO liberal. Right. And a socialist don’t forget.
Who is advising the President these days? Lord know that Daley doesn’t like unions.
Be nice if he brought in unions and true progressives for a little chat and put together a plan of action to go after the rthugs and their radical agenda.
NOT GONNA HAPPEN.
If you’re the median member of the house GOP caucus, I suspect you fear being primaried if you don’t go along with this than you do of having to defend this in the general in 2012. I think the brilliance of movement conservatives taking over the GOP is that now have a caucus that doesn’t really care about the fall out from a shutdown. Compared to the guys that came in in 94 (think guys like Joe Scarborough) these guys are far more radical. The only hope is for Obama to win the politics of the shutdown, and find ways to bring the pain of the shutdown on the gop’s true backers : the rich and the corporations. If I’m boehner and McConnell, I like my odds. Other than the lame duck, Obama doesn’t have many other clean political wins.
The only hope for Obama is a mass movement off of the events in Madison that sweeps this bogus conservatism away. That goes after the corruption in the media and in politics.
Nationalism is for fools:
Hope your right that dems can make themselves heard over the repug noise machine on this one, Boo. If it comes to a government shutdown, Obama had better be willing to make it very clear who is at fault. A prime-time presidential address on the subject of Republican budget wackiness would be nice.
It doesn’t matter who Obama lays the blame on. Reading comments over at The Hill, regarding the NPR link, one that stood out was: (paraphrasing) We have to cut somewhere, because the Democrat-led congress passed a bajillion dollar tax cut.
That’s how it rolls.
BTW, the I’ve Got Mine, You Can Go Fuck Yourself crowd is breathing some fire on that comment thread. To think of going through life resenting everyone is more than depressing.
comments at The Hill run about 98% batshit conservative.
It hasn’t passed the Senate.
The best thing the Dems can do is leave this hanging out there. If they fight in the media, the msm will do what they always do and say both sides do it.
Why would anyone interfere with Republicans making a real mess of things? The economy is not the same as it was in the 1990’s. The Repubs are making a huge mistake. They are doing what they did before, thinking it will work. Wrong.
Just look at WI.
Here’s the problem. This is a continuing resolution for FY 2011, the current fiscal year. The current resolution expires on March 3. After that date, the government is not authorized by Congress to spend money. And that stops government in a number of interesting ways.
In principle, funds for Social Security could still be distributed, but the operating funds for the Social Security Administration would be stopped; so there would be no money for the workers who run the computers that distribute the checks and direct transfers to continue work. The computer center would shut down. And no checks would go out, leaving Social Security recipients without income until the checks were distributed.
What happens to the military is not very clear. How exactly are they exempted in this kind of a shutdown.
But doing specific poison pill provisions, Republicans are maneuvering for Democrats to be the ones whose decision shuts the government down. So Senate inaction would not be the best move.
I’m a bit concerned but one can only hope that the Democrats and Obama won’t cave first. I honestly can’t see them caving to this. This is just plain extreme and they aren’t that dumb… I disagree with people who are saying they will cave. What has happened in the past that people define as “caving” is nowhere near the same caliber as this…
Not merely “in principle”: Automatic direct transfers are, ya’know, automatic. I was on SSDI when, prior to the shutdown in ’96, the SSA sent out a letter reassuring everyone that their payments would not be disrupted. Key personnel show up for work–technically unpaid but knowing they will be eventually–to keep sick and/or old people from harm during Congressional theatrics.
Bonehead and his Teabaggers know that barely a ripple will be felt by anyone who matters to them; it’s all Kabuki. It would certainly be better if these “shutdown events” had dramatic, real-world consequences and millions of people were shocked onto the streets. It would be catastrophic, of course, but just imagine if everything the Federal government does and regulates came to a screeching halt. But, that doesn’t happen in real life.
Thank you. I’m on SSDI.
The check comes on the 3rd. I am changing banks and switching do direct deposit.
Don’t panic. My neighbors in public housing still got their checks via mail. The USPS does the same staggered furlough tactic; bulk mail is delayed but first class mail does still get priority delivery.
But, first thing Tuesday morning get your new bank account and do make the switch to direct deposit. I think the forms for doing that are online at the SSA web site. You’ll get your payments three days early. That’s so much better than anxiously waiting for the postal carrier and having to go to the bank then wait another day for your deposit to be cleared. Get an online banking option so you can watch the money appear in your account.
That works well for me, also for the VA disability.
We are headed for a double catastrophe of idiocy.
Fools on Wall Street and fools in DC.
We’re barely scratching the surface on blasting the Repubs for the draconian measures they want to enact. But, hey the Dems stayed at home in 2012 and the seniors voted as they normally do for Republicans. This IS unfortunately what happens in our seesaw Republic. Once people realize that the chit is about to hit the fan, they finally get up and vote.