Budget negotiators once again gave up early this morning trying to compromise to avoid a shutdown, so it looks like at the stroke of midnight tonight, the federal government will disappear into thin air (or turn into a beautiful princess? not sure how this works). President Obama has been hard at work pretending he is nothing but a bemused observer like us all watching the House and Senate try to figure out a solution to this, so make sure to send him e-vite for your shutdown-countdown party tonight, he may show up. Even if Democrats give in on the amount of cuts Republicans want to make, it turns out, the GOP will still stick in riders to defund Planned Parenthood and to impair health care reform and to start telling the environment it’s not a rape victim when corporations ruin it because it was totally asking for it.
By narrowing the issues, Boehner and Reid mean that they’re close on total spending cuts, which look to be somewhere around $35 billion. What’s left to argue are some very small, contentious, non-budget-related items — in some cases driven by lobbyists. Policy riders over federal funding for Planned Parenthood or a rider barring D.C. from using its own money to fund abortion for low-income women may be small in a national context, but the distance between the two parties is huge. Likewise, heath-care riders, which Eli Lehrer at FrumForum says “offer so little wiggle room that President Obama can’t, as a political matter, agree to even a single one of them as written.” Riders related to the environment are broad attempts to undo nearly every climate-change program and look like they were “written almost entirely by specific industry lobbyists who have good relationships with certain members of Congress.”
Why don’t we just let the lobbyists come together to hammer out the compromise themselves? They always seem to do a good job.
Negotiators offered few details of the back-and-forth behind the closed doors inside the West Wing. But afterward, Mr. Obama used language that suggests that he sees himself more as a bridge between the warring political parties than an active participant in the high-stakes discussions. [...]
As pointed out by The Times’s Jeff Zeleny this week, the president has even begun referring to Democrats in the third person in speeches on the stump.
The same week he announces he would like the Democratic nomination for president? Some nerve! You’re going to have to explain yourself to BILL BRADLEY, sir, because he’s going to take you down.
Planned Parenthood’s government contracts and grants are only something like $363 million, none of which is used to pay for abortion services [...] Really, the Republicans in actuality just don’t want you to get your sexually transmitted diseases treated.
Why would you want to? What a great conversation starter. [NYT/NYT/Daily Intel/The Awl]
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at midnight 4 little girls will come out and sing and Mothra will fly in and save the day….which is about as plausible as the alternatives..might be slightly more entertaining though…
Please shut down the FAA and TSA too, that way these idiotic, irresponsible misrepresentatives are stuck in DC for the duration.
I guess it's too much to assume that the R's have ever heard of the Hyde Amendment…Jesus Christ!
The point is they do- but their dumber than dirt constituents don't so they pretend they are saving babies from being murdered by federal money. Of course, the fact is Planned Parenthood provides many services for poor women- pap smears, breast exams and general health care.
My Married Lover is completely convinced that her precious tax dollars pay for abortions, and refuses to hear evidence showing otherwise. If the sex weren't so insanely good, I would definitely stop committing mortal sins with her.
Say hi to Michele for me. And is she really going to run?
OMFG, you're banging Palin?!?
Would you believe that the Married Lover actually does have a special needs child? (Autistic, not Down Syndrome) She's angry that the Great State of Idaho is making budget cuts that will reduce the amount of therapy available for her kid, but she is quite sure that the money is being shifted to pay for irresponsible people's abortions and out-of-wedlock babbies.
Tits or GTFO
"Planned Parenthood provides many services for poor women- pap smears, breast exams and general health care." Who cares? If God had intended them to be people he wouldn't have made them poor (or female).
They don't; their problem is that Roe v Wade and Griswold v Connecticut are still the law of the land, so they're doing everything they can to make it nearly impossible to get a legal abortion or birth control, unless you're rich.
You'd think for a group who values absolute secrecy and loyalty tests as pre-qualifier for corruption, Republicans wouldn't hate Griswold so much…but of course saying that, one is also reminded of the fact that Republicans literally lack any awareness either socially or…intellectually and thus they think taking away privacy rights would only hurt gays and women…not gay Republican men who marry beards and then have sex in bathrooms while trying to make sodomy illegal. Alas we return to zero awareness and a circular argument is achieved…
Say, you know who else contrived to shut down his country's legislature… ?
President Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%27t_Happen_He…
The late Lennart Meri, of Estonia? http://guyclinch.blogspot.com/2008/04/official-co…
scott walker?
Havelock Vetinari?
Emperor Palpitation, or whatever his stupid name was?
High five!
Chancellor Palpatine?
Scalia, Alito, and Thomas?
Caligula?
Oh come on, you're not even trying…Caligula would be far too liberal to be a Republican these days, although socially they like the whole "rape any woman he sees" while enforcing laws to kill anyone who does the same thing. Caligula also named a horse as an advisor…okay, so he was TOO sane and competent to be a Republican these days….
Although I did occasionally refer to W as "little cowboy boot"*
*For those who are not total geeks, "Caligula" translates to "little boot"
Gaius Baltar?
Von Hindenburg?
I know, I know…too easy, Newtus "eh too, Newtus?" but in his defense he only shut down the Government so he could have a couple weeks off to cheat on his wife (because his love of America made him horny again…anyone remember the guy in "High Anxiety" who got off sexually on killing people? Methinks Newt thinks it's a good idea to invoke that character) without his lame "day job". Maybe Boner figures instead of going to work drunk, with the Government shut down he doesn't even need to leave his favorite bar in Georgetown, except at closing…via wheelbarrow….with tears, lots and lots of tears.
"Obama has been hard at work pretending he is nothing but a bemused observer"
Has he filled in his bracket for the Masters Tournament yet?
HEY! It ain't over until Boehner weeps at midnight!
Then, we loot the Smithsonian! Hooray!
If you try to touch the crochet coral reef, I will attack you with one of my small sharp hooks!
Dibs on the Hope diamond and the Tucker and the secret National Porn collection!
shotgun on fonzi's jacket!
I call Dillinger's schlong!
Is the large filming model of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 at the Smithsonian????
I want that.
No, but I know where the Close Encounters Of The Third Kind mothership is.
I want microscopic portions of Einstein's brain, preserved by various methods.
Southern Railroad's Big Ol' 1401 is mine, mine, MINE. And all the single-action colts, the Winchesters, and some of the M-1 Garands.
That EPA one. If I were suspicious, I'd be thinking; "Gee, I wonder if there are a coupla billionaire brothers out there that pollute the shit out of everything, to earn ever more billions that would benefit from defunding clean air regulations?" But we're too stupid to put that together, I guess.
Idiot! It's about FREEDOM, which is a Yang worship word.
2+2=5 in the new maths
I'd love to be able to paste pictures of Jack Klugman over the windows of Koch Mansion during the night, facing inward. Then wait until morning and the drapes opening.
One cold, black heart stopped is enough. Both would be a bonus.
Do these douchebags get paid during the shutdown? That's what matters.
Of course they will. They're "essential".
The Republicans put the provision stopping Congressional pay in the event of a government shutdown in the budget bill. So if the goverment keeps operating, then Congress won't get paid if it shuts down.
Duh!
So basically, the GOP would rather fuck up the country screw themselves over for 2012 just as they did for 1996 than avoid fucking over the nation's poor women and environment just for the hell of it.
yes- exactly
I firmly believe that they will NOT be risking ANY election at this point… the machines have sided with them.
FUCK YOU DIEBOLD!
huh, how about excel on a lap top?
They don't need no stinkin diebold to steal elections!
Dems: How about we split our differences?
Repubs: No abortion!
Dems: We'll accept some more cuts, and anyway the Federal government doesn't fund abortions.
Repubs: No Planned Parenthood!
Dems: We're not going to accept eliminating Planned Parenthood, but we will agree to more cuts elsewhere.
Repubs: No PBS!
Dems: We like PBS. How about cutting something else?
Repubs: No abortion!
Dems: You already have that.
Repubs: Dems aren't negotiating in good faith!
Okay, I know you must be a senate staffer who's punchy from staying up all night, night after night, working on negotiations with Boner's teabags. Who else could give such an accurate, insider's account of the negotiations.
Come on, who are you, really?
More like,
Repubs: Cut everything that might remotely help the non-super rich Americans.
Dems: Ok, just don't hurt me cuz I'm a big caving-ass pussy.
REVEAL YOURSELF CONGRESSMAN! MY TAX DOLLARS ARE PAYING FOR YOUR WIRELESS INTERNET!
Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!
Gubbermint shutdown…What are the corn farmers, SS-teet-sucking Teabaggers™, Corporate Welfare whores, Oil companies waiting for drilling permits, and Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives folks gonna do??
what about Falwell? if Liberty University shuts down, where would we get our liberty from? the chinamen don't make and export any! we are fucked.
Does this mean… Harry Reid has sprouted a spine? Did he get some cojones on loan from, say, Hillary Clinton? Did the taunting from Chuck Schumer become too much for the Boehner? OR… is this just a simple clusterfuck?
Got my old job back at the soup kitchen yesterday. Take THAT, recession!
Hey, I am out in the alley. Could you slide me a bowl???
Hey, mac, you want soup, gotta endure the preaching, same as everybody else.
Okay, just as long as Edith Keiler is the preacher.
"Let me help." A hundred years or so from now, I believe, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He'll recommend those three words even over "I love you."
(Hint: The famous novelist is going to be Harlan Ellison)
I wish I was kidding. Plus I'm a term, so when they do pass the budget, I'll be cut anyway. I can burn my student loan bills to keep warm though!
Aw man/woman, sorry for your situation.
"It's mourning in America!"
Obama could remain aloof, or he could point out that shutting down Planned Parenthood is consistent with Sharia law and watch the heads explode. Wonder which he'll do.
It is only bad when Moslems oppress women- when Amrican women are oppressed, denied health care and equal rights- it is GOD's WILL(the real god- Jesus)
"The environment shouldn't have gone out dressed like that — really, what did it expect would happen?" — Charles and David Koch.
Hawt strip mining makes their Kochs hard
When mother nature says no she means yes, and when she says yes, she means frac and plunder my riches as Gawd intended.
What's really annoying is that Obama makes kumbaya, mush-mouthed statements to the press about how everyone is doing just fine and they're making progress. Then the righties get the microphone and start spouting how Obama eats ass and is trying to ram his agenda down their throats and they're just trying to save the soldier's paychecks.
Who looks more powerless in this scenario?
Uninformed people think it's all Barry's fault. Every goddamned time.
Polls say that people blame the GOP more than anyone else for this mess. If the numbers indicated that people were blaming Barry, he'd probably be more visible.
The GOP shouting is ginning up their base more than anything else, it's backfiring with independent voters.
Here's a link to the latest from Gallup: http://bit.ly/gqHL1i
Quoting from same:
The percentage of Americans preferring the Republicans in Congress on this question slipped to 34% from 42% in late February. At the same time, the percentage of Americans having no preference for either side (those who say both parties are doing an equally good job or who have no opinion) rose from 19% to 25%, while their preference for Obama and the Democrats held steady at close to 40%.
Really, the Republicans in actuality just don’t want you to get your sexually transmitted diseases treated.
Joking, I once told a girl that eating lots of garlic helps prevent transmission of STDs. She asked "Really??!" in a voice that seemed a little too excited. I kind of kept my distance from her after that . . .
It's true — most vampires are just walking cesspools.
Hey, it worked for Vlad the Impaler!
(What were we talking about, again?)
My 1973 Impala has vanity plates that read "VLAD." An obscure pun is easily worth the extra $25 bucks a year.
Wow! Took me three days to find this, but . . . Wow!
When I worked as a counselor at Planned Parenthood, there was a popular urban myth that drinking Mountain Dew made men sterile. I had patients actually ask me if this was a valid form of birth control.
"I kind of kept my distance from her after that . . . :
Of course, if she'd taken your advice and eaten lots of garlic, you probably would have kept the same distance from her anyway, so it's kind of a no-win.
Well, I'm relieved that Barry will be maintaining his cool, suave composure and not get all fiery and pissed off and actually fight. It's not Presidential to look like you give a damn.
People of the US of A.
This is NOT a good thing. These rat fuckers are screwing over pretty much EVERYONE. Unless you make a gazillion dollars a year this WILL effect you and the planet! It truly is time to stop these crybaby fucks and their agenda. I fear that, at this point, the ONLY thing they will understand is complete revolt and the actual dumping of garbage (and concrete blocks) on their heads.
That means the federal buildings around the country will be closed starting Monday, right? Let's set up a desk in front of each building and accept canned and non-perishiable donations for the federal government – you know, till it can get its head together and get back to work.
I would gladly collect cans of beans for those fuck-heads… and then bean 'em with 'em to open their minds for some clear thinking.
This epidemic of denial….. IT BURNS…
They want government to be sooooo small that they can walk into my uterus and monitor it at any time to make sure that I am birthing all babies. Fuck them! Playtime is over. I'm so pissed off right now that I want to march on something and have a sign and get arrested.
March to the Federal Building and have a bake sale out front.
I'm ready to join (no snark). Would that we would all feel that way, and then act on it.
This is why I made sure I got fixed lasted year. You know, before midterms.
Why can't we enjoy a stateside government shutdown? I hate those people at the DMV so much.
Hmmm, undoing every climate change measure. I wonder who stands to gain by denying global warming and keeping the status quo? Wingnuts can't seem to work out that Al Gore would make about the same if he gave anodyne speeches as he does for giving his supposed hoax-y ones, but the corporations making 12 billion a quarter profit, not revenues, might see a slight dip in their cash flow if we try to stop them from choking us.
That collection of abortificants leading the GOP congressional caucus do realize that defunding Planned Parenthood's fambly planning programs is going to lead to more abortions, don't they?
Yes – and collect more donations from the outraged but not too bright fundies when it happens. Win win.
Yes, but they're hoping it will be the illegal kinds, so there would be a better chance that the slut would die with the precious baby she is trying to get rid of.
It's a simple question of morality.
"That collection of abortificants leading the GOP…"
Isn't that abortifascists?
What? Wait? You mean that people won't just stop having sex, except as a means of procreation?
Guy Fuckers? Oh, wait that's the Republicans. Never mind.
That wuz a blast from the past
For a while it astonished me how willing the Republicans were to fuck this country over in order to gain a political point. Then I realized that if they got their way the country would be horribly fucked over anyway, so they win whether they win or lose.
Shut down the border and the air traffic control, bitches. If you are going to do this thing, do it right.
What a great way to start an early weekend for Boner et al… are stripclubs open at lunch time in the DC area?
HOW ARE PEOPLE NOT COMPLETELY FUCKING FURIOUS OVER THIS? I DON'T UNDERSTAND.
IDIOCRACY… it is here.
Ow! My Balls!
I listen to Panic in Detroit to calm myself.
Do I have to try quitting smoking again? And when can I start drinking?
remember, remember
that Cinco de Mayo
is the bi-yearly opposite
of the Fifth of November
Carry on~
Again, let's do this Pol Pot style: send the TSA goons and ATCs home, shut the airports and ports of entry. Turn off aircraft guidance radar. Empty out the VA hospitals. No Soshecurity check this month, Gramps: it's a shutdown! If a forest fire starts on Federal land, let it burn. Don't go to the bank or write any checks; the Fed's closed and can't process 'em. Army, Marine Corps*: fight on guys, but your spouses at home won't get a direct deposit this month — nothing personal! Boehner just wants to make a point.
Well not really, but it must be tempting to think about it.
___________________
*Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard are already innocent bystanders in our current wars
But how will I find my way home without my precious GPS?
THAT would be hilarious. Let's see everybody get by without GPS for a while.
Sweet weepin' Christ.
And the second reminder of Pol Pot in as many days, during Cambodian fuckin' New Year.
Not that we shouldn't be kept cognizant of Pol Pot… we should… but jezus will
wondersre-upped living nightmares never cease?i can't wait for the great chinese moon war.
I vote for Invader Zim.
And why are the Koch Bros making my toilet paper rolls skinnier? They used to be four inches wide; now they are three inches wide. At this rate, in a year I'll be paying $2 a roll for g-string wide toilet paper. Might as well just use my hands and go to a GOP "meet-n-greet."
Soil-und greet?
It's made of people!
Back in the day it was acid, amnesty, and abortion. The Rethugs are no longer harping about Vietnam draft dodging, since so many of their oldes fit that category.
Today's shutdown is just about the remaining two of those three, but the acid in question has morphed from the Purple Double Dome / Orange Sunshine variety to industrial wastes. The budget means a good bit for the Kochsuchers and their kin, but the budget impasse is a smoke screen for the fundaments (#2 specifically) to push their social agenda.
*gets out file and starts working on the points of his pitchfork*
Man, it needs to be sharper than that — these assholes have tough skin. I'm whet-stoning mine, then going to hit it with red rouge on the cloth wheel of the grinder.
Also, acid reflux.
"Why don’t we just let the lobbyists come together to hammer out the compromise themselves?"
Howz about-
"We absolutely do not compromise ourselves any longer and hammer the lobbyists together."?
Isn't there an easier way for Boehner to go golfing?
This is just as Lenin predicted. There will come a time when there is no need for government. Just the dictatorship of theTea Party.
Budget Buster Paul Ryan: Do you have the words straight?
Agent Orange Mr. Speaker Boner: You know, I won't understand them if I live to be a hundred.
Budget Buster Paul Ryan: You won't.
Later on Faux News
Speaker Boner: So the Republican Party will be changing our name to the Soylent Greenz to show our grass roots as a people party.
Hopefully this works out as well for our republicant frauds now as it did in the 90s.
There's a FrumForum? So long, Wonkette, it's been a slice…
The local radio station that my alarm clock is tuned to was talking about the shutdown this morning. Except it's a pop station (the only one that old alarm clock gets) and their "discussion" went like this: "If you haven't been following, all government could shut down if congress can't agree on a budget, because some congressmen want to stop paying the armed forces who are overseas! These people sacrifice for us, call your congressmen and tell them that you want the servicemen and women overseas to still get a salary!"
That was how my morning started.
So basically, the repugs are throwing a hissy fit and even though the dems have caved to many of their budget cuts just to keep everything running, the repugs are demanding that, essentially, low-income women and men not have access to yearly exams, STD testing, cancer screening or birth control. On principle. And somehow managing to get people to think that they're standing up for military salaries, because if they don't, the dems won't pay people who are overseas.
I mean, I know the people who watch Beck are morons with no capacity for rational thought or reasoning, but good god.
Considering nearly every "local" radio station these days is actually owned by an enormous conglomerate, this isn't surprising in the slightest. They control the means of disseminating information, and they know it… and the biggest snow-job they've pulled is managing to convince the majority of American Idiots that the media (that they own) has a "left-wing bias".
Since the gov't is shutting down, do I still have to pay my student loans?
I, for one, look forward to our coming anarchy. Where's my shotgun and molotov cocktail?
No, they'll still get paid. The treasure baths will continue.
Money fight!
Forget abortion. The Tea Bagger Party has raised the ante. Now they're openly opposed to all forms birth control as well. Every Sperm is Sacred!
Great. Suddenly, I want to go hug a tree, and then get an abortion.
Can someone explain the GOP's fascination with what goes on in my veejayjay
Hanging around little boy interns all the time, they're mystified at what goes on in those icky-girl-parts.
They are sick fucks.
Going double-or-nothing on class war, reality-retconning for dear life & slaves to a means of reproduction/means of production fetish = the GOP is doing a great job of turning into the Shining Path.
They've never seen one?
If the shutdown happens, I guarantee the Tea Party is going to have a big government shutdown celebration orgy. They've been wanting this for a long time.
"the Tea Party is going to have a big government shutdown celebration orgy."
In the interest of everyone here's sanity, please don't use the words "Tea Party" and "orgy" in the same sentence, unless you then go on to include, "of bloodletting".
Science has proven that 29 percent of the American people will believe anything. The genius of Obama and the Democratic Party is that they've figured out how to give that 29 percent control of a supposedly majority ruled country.
Dems: Okay. We give up. To avoid a shutdown, we agree to everything you have proposed. All of it.
Lipton-Earl Grey Republicans: Not enough! What about the stuff we didn't propose but have wet dreams about? Shut it down until you are ready for serious negotiations.
Don't soil the good name of Earl Grey with Republicans. Picard was a die-hard socialist, just like everybody else on TNG.
This will never happen because the Democratic senate "leadership" (to misuse the term) is as soft as the President…but if a recognizable dem would just say publicly that the GOP social agenda is keeping a budget from being passed it would be be a complete win.
I actually just went to Planned Phood today, and interestingly enough it was just FULL of women, especially young hot ones, so I can see why pubtards hate it.
Also, I was there like 2 hours, and they didn't let me watch even a single fucking abortion! The nerve.
Also, I did see a nice young couple get positive pregnancy test results, that sucked. Laughing and lovey dovey before the test, stern faces afterwards. It's all fun and games until the zygote gets penetrated kids.
They shouldn't worry; the Republicans will make sure the fetus' rights completely trump their own until the thing is born, at which point they'll be sure to offer a lifetime* job in the military to the kid.
* Until he or she is killed by friendly fire and the government covers it up.
♪ ♫ ♪ ♫ AULD LANG GOATSE ♪ ♫ ♪ ♫
The Baggers will be chortlin' when everything goes "poof."
Here's why my local Teatard Senator Mike Lee thinks we should blame OBama for the shutdown.
This from the Salt Lake Tribune, First, Lee said Obama failed to get a budget passed at the end of last year, when both the House and Senate were controlled by Democrats. Second, he said the president has relied on short-term budget bills to fund the government this year. And third, Obama has vowed to veto what would be the seventh short-term budget bill.
So the teatards hate that Obama didn't pass a bill they would all hate. They also hate that Obama will and will not sign short term spending bills.
These fucktards have no clue what they want and will fight tooth and nail to get it.
"These fucktards have no clue what they want and will fight tooth and nail to get it"
Nicely put.
Also, I'm jealous because I don't get to say I'm a Native of SLUT.
Obama our Bridge over troubled water? the clock is ticking…
"some teens in florida thought that taking shots of bleach would prevent HIV"
They're not too far wrong, since swallowing bleach would probably make you, yknow, die, which pretty much ruins most people's chance of having sex.
“One day soon, man is going to be able to harness incredible energy — maybe even the atom. Energy that could ultimately hurl men to other worlds in some sort of spaceship. And the men that reach out into space will find ways to feed the hungry millions of the world, and to cure their diseases. They'll be able to find a way to give each man hope and a common future. And those are the days worth living for.”
Oh it totally is. At Planned Parenthood we used to sit around the water cooler and poke holes in the condoms so that we could rake in that sweet, sweet abortion money.* And then we would laugh and laugh at all the special needs kids who couldn't get therapy.
*This is an actual thing that anti-choice groups have accused PP of.
Edith Keeler must die.
(♪♫♪♬ Hey, hey, goodbye, tomorrow Edith has to die…. ♪♫♪♬)
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