by Smitty
Hot Air goes for the cheap hits on something I saw earlier, hinting that Sarah Palin may be considering alleging Herman Cain sexually harassed her un-declining to run for President, but I had refused to nibble. However, if Something Really Big Happens on 13 November, don’t forget this post. I’ll admit to hoping things change in that direction, in the context of all that hopium and change-eeba have bought us the last three years.
The good thing about all the GOP fumbling about is that we may, eventually, get so flipping sick of the whole popularity contest aspect, that we, of sheer boredom, get down to the brass tacks of What We Need To Do To Recover Liberty.
If that happens, BHO is toast.
Good point. However…
The letter signed by 40 Republican representatives–including one of Boehner’s inner circle–may doom the GOP and the country.
These 40 sellouts have indicated willingness to raise taxes. Those 40, plus every Democrat, is enough to get such an abomination passed in the House. And that means bye-bye Republicans. The backlash would be astounding.
I’m beginning to think that absent a miracle (I mean the “flash of lightning from heaven” kind of thing) this country is doomed.
If they agree to raise taxes the GOP certainly is toast.
Yeah, at that point, anything could happen. Without the Tea Party input, the GOP is kinda shot.
What kind of crack-head, “We must do this or ALL hell breaks loose” calculus could drive that thinking?
Oh yeah: the Stupor Committee.
It just means there are 40 reps to primary the shit out of. Didn’t they freaking learn anything from the 2010 elections?
I get the feeling alot of websites miss the Palin love/bashing. Hot Air has got to be missing the 1500 comment threads repeating the same tired arguments, made by the same commenters, over and over.
The truly stupid part of this, which might explain the GOP’s fatal attraction doing something stupid about it, is that the dance of the stooper committee is a sham. Just as the cuts in the debt deal were a sham. If the trigger gets pulled so what? There are no real cuts. There are promises to fractionally cut the future rate of growth in spending. These promises are made on behalf of politicians who are not yet elected and have no obligation to abide by previous agreements.
Tina Korbe over at HotAir discusses THE counterpoint to the Super Committee, and by extension, the business as usual budget process: the Honest Budget Act. http://hotair.com/archives/2011/11/02/the-bill-frank-luntz-calls-legislative-perfection/
Key point: “This is a no-brainer: Does any politician actually want to stand up and defend dishonest accounting?”
Mrs. Palin has been very quiet – very much out of the news since she stated she won’t run.
I urge most GOP delegates not to commit. I hope others do so too. In every state. Then they can go to the convention and decide on the nominee there.
I am sorry, Romney winning by default is not acceptable. If Mitt wants to win, he has to convice more than 24% of us.
Follow my plan. Encourage your state delegates to keep their powder dry till the convention.
Voting to raise taxes would sacrifice the House GOP majority, any chance at the Senate, very likely any shot at unseating Obama, perhaps even the GOP itself.
I truly think that Boehner & Co. believe this is the “lesser of two evils.” My own personal opinion: the Establishment, GOP and Democrat alike, are petrified. And John Boehner defines Two-Faced Establishment Scumbag, and will do literally ANYTHING to maintain the status quo.
NOBODY is that stupid. Not even John Boehner.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/03/national-restaurant-association-chairman-during-cain%e2%80%99s-tenure-its-a-hatchet-job/#ixzz1cgxno84R
It’s a hatchet job. Stacy buck up.
Somewhat OT: Deace reveals what Cain’s outrageous comment was to female staffers. NSFW unless you’re British.
http://www.fivefeetoffury.com/2011/11/phew-thank-god-cain-didnt-say-ill-be-mother/
It’s probably because if they don’t come to some kind of agreement there’s going to be deep cuts in the military. I’d like to know what fool set that up, and why the GOP agreed to it, or whether that was just some arbitrary threat by Obama. If the latter I see no reason the GOP has to adhere to it. In fact, they still don’t. The House seems to have forgotten they do control the purse strings. They could have cut off funding for the EPA, to give just one example, and told Obama to pound sand if he didn’t like it. I don’t think any of these guys want to do jack shit about cutting these regulatory agencies, because that’s power to them.
Stacy did you mean to link a post at Hot Air? You linked the same post under Hot Air as you did for “don’t forget this post”.
EXACTLY.
They love the status quo. I think they put Defense on the chopping block to create an excuse for a phony crisis. Which will allow them to give the Democrats whatever they want (which, in their heart of hearts, is what THEY want, too).
Just like with the Debt Ceiling. “If we don’t do this…”
Once again, it’ll be Boehner telling us to eat the “crap sandwich” because the sky will fall if we don’t. And the GOP will vote to raise taxes. And march off the cliff to oblivion.
There wont be deep cuts in anything, merely promises to make deep cuts later maybe. That’s why agreeing to raise taxes would be criminally stupid. If the stooper committee agrees to a mix of cuts and taxes the cuts would be a chimera the taxes, real and immediate as a heart attack. If there is no deal from the torpor committee and the trigger with across the board cuts activates the next congress just ignores it. The only part of the debt ceiling deal that mattered, that was real, was the increase in the debt ceiling.
Great link as usual Steyn was spot on.
http://www.breitbart.tv/60-minutes-ambushes-nancy-pelosi/
While the stupor committee stumbles along, this is a nice (albeit off topic) palet cleansor–because I sure as hell need my palet cleansed today.
The NYT has the entire scoop on one of the stories.
Needless to say…Herman Cain is gonna keep on WINNING!
Story is that Cain flirts (in what some of his defenders say is Herman being Herman) with girl staffer at a late dinner. Cain is relaxed (i.e….he has had a few drinks as had everybody else). Woman complains to her boss. After her allegations…she feels that her boss and others are treating her differently. As such, she is evidently unhappy and leaves the job…but not before taking a $35k severance.
The one who received the $35k is the one whose lawyer is in the news.
The other woman who received $45k, answered the phone once…said no comment…and nobody knows anything about her evidently.
A third one, who said she thought about complaining about Cain has been contacted, but she says that she doesn’t want to become another Anita Hill.
Anybody here reminded of Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles pointing a gun to his own head and taking himself hostage?
Well I guess this is the Congressional version of it.
LOL…
Love that movie…one of the best ever….still has replay value today…(and that movie is older than me I believe).
Funny, this is the scene this whole kerfluffle brings to mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=jGQ-ISsDm8M
Yay! A sober and non-personal discussion of the issues and what we MUST do to get the country back on track is certainly preferable to the infighting we’ve seen. But that’s tough to do when the MSM is setting the rules and running the debates.
Concerning the GOP letter, it isn’t even a proposal. It just tells the SuperComm to Go Big and aim for $4 trillion in total reductions, and not to take anything off the table. That’s it. Among the signatories: Ron Paul. Whatever you think of him, he’s not known as a “sellout” on taxes.
HOW MANY of you throwing hissy fits and organizing lynch mobs and primary opponents have ACTUALLY READ THE LETTER? I bet few or none, and most of you are taking some other person’s word on the contents – and they haven’t read the thing either!
Back in my Jefferson Debating Society days, a fourth year man told me on my first visit one of the most important things in debating is to read and understand the question being debated.
Don’t let me slow down the mob with torches and pitchforks, but if you have some time while you wait for the rope to be imported, here it is: http://tinyurl.com/3e58apu
Let me play psychic and guess: You haven’t actually READ the letter yourself, have you?
Trifecta has some thoughts on our leadership crises, I know vote for Underdog over Romney or Obama.
http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=105&load=6228
Unfortunately, that only works if you are able to thoroughly vet the people slated for uncommitted delegates.
Otherwise, you don’t know if they will sell their vote cheap.
“To succeed, all mandatory and discretionary spending AND REVENUES must be on the table.” (Emphasis mine.)
“Revenues” is Washington-speak for “taxes.”
When conservatives hear, “bipartisan,” we smell “sellout.” “Bipartisan” agreements inevitably lead to Democrats getting what they want, and conservatives getting lied to/screwed.
When conservatives hear that “revenue” is on the table–that means tax increases, as re-christened by the D.C. Establishment.
You can live in your wishful-thinking world. But when Republicans sign a letter saying talking about “bipartisan” and all options–including “revenue” on the table–it means Boehner & Co. are about to start building crap sandwiches for us in Chef Obama’s kitchen.
I didn’t try to find the letter but did try to find a list of who signed it without success. I am aware that the letter is purported to say that everything is on the table inferring, what ever their intention, that tax increases are acceptable. No they are not. At it’s very best this is an incredibly stupid failure of message discipline.
As soon as the stupor committee fails as designed because the Republican committee members refuse to go along with the “Donner Party” demands to be allowed to eat the rich, the Cannibal in Chief will be out on the campaign trail thundering that the do nothing Republicans have refused to be responsible by refusing to enact tax increases that at least 40 Republicans supported. One does not defeat a mortal enemy by constantly reloading their weapons for them.
You mean Romney might buy them? I think at this point I am willing to take my chances.
Surely you’re not arguing that lynching congressman, some from each party but many from one is a bad idea. And we don’t need to wait on imported rope, construction companies throw away miles of steel cable all the time.
No, but lynching the signers for this letter seems premature.
If Republicans insist on an idiotic Norquist position – no new revenues no matter what – there will be no deal. Without a deal CBO scores at least $1.2 trillion, the automatic cuts come, and they will be disastrous for defense and poorly proportioned on other programs, entitlements being exempt.
These cuts MUST come or our credit will be further downgraded. We are right back on the edge of unrecoverable insolvency we were tempting earlier. We knew this wasn’t a good deal, but there was no good deal available. Even a minimum $1.2 tril deal may not prevent a downgrade.
This letter tells the SC to GO BIG and shoot for $4 trillion, real deficit reduction, closer to the Ryan budget plan’s $5.6, a decent start in the LONG TERM process of cleaning up this mess – which is not entirely Obama’s fault, but which he has exploded into critical mass in less than three years.
There are plenty of ways to raise revenue without marginal rate increases. And truth be told, if we could strike a deal that begins to address the entitlement problem and the deficit in a serious “BIG” way, raising the top rate from 36% to 39% on the highest bracket isn’t going to impact investment in any measurable way. We would be INSANE to turn down such a deal.
Or perhaps too late.
But the cuts are pure fantasy whether agreed to at the time of the debt deal or from the torpor committee or from the “triggered cuts” they only exist in the imagination of frauds. Spending cuts would mean spending less in 2011 than we spent in 2010 not the 5% more money spent this year. Giving the government more money will not be used for debt or deficit reduction but more spending. In a Gallop poll a few weeks ago a majority of Americans believe that the federal government wastes at least 50 cents of every dollar it gets. Those people are optimists.
If more revenue is needed there should be a fire sale on oil and gas leases.
I’m beginning to think that absent a miracle (I mean the “flash of
lightning from heaven” kind of thing) this country is doomed.
It’s nice to know I’m not alone in my rampant pessimism.
Primary them good and hard – this is a war for the American Soul.
Unfortunately, the PDF Adj links to is an image of the letter so I can’t grab the list of those who signed with by Adobe Pro. I will try to find and publish the list over at my joint.
Her silence may speak volumes.
Steyn for Press Secretary in the next conservative administration!
Ah…Pagan…it’s Admiral Smitty…now drop down and give him fifty!
Damn, I usually think to check for that before I address either of them.
Still waiting on that fifty, soldier! How tall are you, Private Pagan?
No entitlements aren’t exempt either, unless Medicare isn’t an entitlement. That’s the other thing that was facing big cuts if they couldn’t come to a deal, that and defense. I think its all a load of crap. Its just a way they dreamed up to excuse raising taxes when push comes to shove. Wait and see if crybaby doesn’t lay it out that way. And why is the Tea Party so fucking quiet all of a sudden? I don’t like the direction this shit is going in.
Do I have to do them all at once?