Haggis Logic
I just watched Arlen "Scottish Haggis" Specter explain how they didn’t really cut $600 million in child care.
He explained very helpfully that if you don’t get 60 votes, then there would be no money for child care.
Of course, he and Susan Collins (and, apparently, one more Republican) are the only ones standing between a bill and 60 votes. In other words, every single change made to the bill is Haggis’ responsible, along with Collins and almost no one else. (Sanctimonious Joe is doing the same.)
So basically, Haggis, Collins, the Bad Nelson, and Sanctimonious Joe just cut $600 million in child care. By themselves.
But acording to Haggis Logic, that doesn’t mean he and his buddies just stole money from children. Really it doesn’t.
Shorter Haggis Logic: “Subtraction is addition if you wish hard enough.”
Subtraction is addition when you’ve got assholes like Haggis, Sanctimonious Joe, Shrill Collins, and the Bad Nelson before you.
The gallows humor of your post kills me. *g*
The picture I’m seeing is Haggis and his fellow bullies standing off a bunch of 6 year olds. Picking fights with children, and only those they know won’t hit back.
Great .. so the DLC hates children … that ought to be the new refrain. Make Al From radio-freakin’-active
you think haggis logic is confusing, you should see haggis ballistics
or maybe you have …
(wink)
So, I’m having this vision of Teddy Kennedy rising up on shaking legs, and thundering, “No, dammit, No!” and torpedoing this tepid “compromise,” forcing a vote on the original bill (without the cuts).
BTW, a handy way to let your senators know what you think is via congress.org. Just give’em your zip code.
Bob in HI
Tom Coburn thinks he’s Frank Luntz: “Generational Theft Bill.”
That would be the generation after the generation that pays off the Iraq War debt.
Spending money on going to war is money better spent than spending money on saving America.
This Repug “logic” defies logic.
Maybe our kids would prefer to grow up into a society without jobs.
that’s what I always prayed for …
(ducking and running)
anybody ever heard the tale of Goldilocks and the 3 bears, as told by a prosecuting attorney ???
goldilocks was a violent criminal, don’t ya know
it’s all in how you tell the story
this is just a nitpicking FYI:
dat’s da way da mathmagicians always splained it to mi
subtraction is addition of a negative number
(damn photographic memeory, now I’m remembering stuff I didn’t unnerstand the first time …)
jus sayin, is all
(wink)
So you won’t mind if I subtract $100 from your bank account because you’d feel like it was adding a -$100 to your account?
Sign me up! *g*
Is it really asking so freakin’ much to make Haggis and his awful chums to filibuster??? Let them stand there and defend their actions for hours on end. Make ‘em earn that 60 vote threshold.
bingo. that’s exactly what I was going to say.
pick a fight with these guys, make them filibuster the damn thing on the day the worst jobs report in 50 years comes out…
the 60 votes is a fucking myth. chickshit m*therf*ckers
bingo. that’s exactly what I was going to say too — but without the asterisks ; )
Damn, you are sooooooo on target.
Make these bastards filibuster – the REAL way, no weenie sitting down or taking even toilet breaks.
And then figure out who can do more interviews in which federal officials reveal how they are absolutely screwing their own state teachers, cops, mayors, state troopers, coroners, court employees, and road crews for the sake of the GOP.
Make this a ‘perfect storm’ for the GOP global warming and economic meltdown deniers.
The sooner, the better.
You want the bill that’s 42% tax cuts to pass?
I want Obama’s bill to pass.
I want the GOP repudiated and exposed as partisan, Wall Street befuddled frauds.
I’m totally with masaccio: we’re a nation of idiots led by clowns.
That’s got to stop.
The GOP is obsessing on the failed bullshit that has proven not to work. It’s been disastrous.
I want Obama to rip the doors off the partisan bullshit of the past 20+ years.
I don’t think this is Obama’s bill any more. I most sincerely hope freep’s right. Do we have any idea how much cojone fortitude the D’s in the conference committee will have?
yep
I sure do
I’ll let ya is on a little secret
Democrats are gonna control the conference on the bill, and we can rewrite the whole fucking thing
after that, the repuglitards can’t filibuster the conference bill
the repuglitards have not yet reached the dregs in their mug of woe
Yes, exactly right !
The Concessions that the Repukes are demanding will come back and bite them squarely in the ass.
I’ve said it before … the Repukes still don’t understand who the f*ck is POTUS but they’re going to spend the next 8 years finding out.
Of course if the D’s take out the tax cuts then the R’s will have that to bash the D’s with (in the eyes of the low-info public) forever.
Damn. I was so pissed and frustrated that I lost sight of that fact.
Booyah.
What do you mean in terms of the mechanics?
How much of the tax cuts can/will they take out in conference?
As it stands (from what little I know) this is yet another crappy bill (like TARP) because there appears a total absence of grown-ups in DC. Obama’s “childish things” quote sounded pretty, but where’s the follow through? Where’s Reid saying you want to cut the stimulus out of the stimulus bill? Fine. Filibuster until you wet yourselves. We’ll wait.
Instead it’s more crappy legislation that gives politicians lots of optics, while being dead useless or worse… Rather than pass something useful, we waste time on this nonsense and then everyone in the Village gets to pretend they did something, while the economy tanks and the country goes bankrupt as they pound each other on the back feeling pleased with themselves. Revolting.
We’ll know when we see the makeup of the conference committee.
Could go either way. PBO needs to make it clear what he wants to happen in committee.
It’s probably too much to hope that the GOP thinks their bullying looks like ‘leadership’, but that Obama and the Dems have laid a trap and been walking backward.
If it turns out that Obama has been shrewd enough to do that, then we could have a phase change. God knows, we need one.
I am furious at the barren, idiotic, vacuous ideas of the GOP.
Total insanity.
My brother – a diehard Chamber of Commerce type – had to lay off people this week.
People’s lives are being impacted.
Microsoft is laying people off, for Christsake.
Look at car sales (!)
And the GOP is dickering over how many miles a pile of bills will reach?!
While my state is having extra, extended hours for unemployment claims?? (Microsoft laid off 6,000; Boeing laid off about 10,000, and then there’s the Washington Mutual meltdown — which is a whole other story.)
And the GOP blathers about condoms and finds bullshit to whine about?
I’m in a ‘well off’ part of the country, and I see ‘for lease’ signs popping up weekly.
What fucking planet are these people on?
(What drugs are they taking? Cause maybe I need some.)
it’s not the children who suffer.
there is not a single doctor or hospital around who would refuse to treat an indigent child.
it is the hospital and doc who don’t get reimbursed.
so if this is what it takes to get 780billion, then fine by me.
better get 2 more seats in 2010 to make haggis unnecessary.
Force. Them. To. Filibuster.
It’s really that simple. Now back to reading William Shirer…the best thing to do while Rome burns. If the fire dies real low, I suppose we can also toss books in “to prime the economy”.
Thanks ew.
digg
Not to worry; there’s still that $15,000 dollar homebuyers tax-credit.
So all the realtors are happy.
And guess who has the money to buy houses right about now?
Our neediest have to come first so get in line kids, bankers are suffering!
We are a nation of idiots led by clowns.
Yes.
However, call me crazy, but I swear that I just watched Tweety pwn Gov Haley Barbour of Mississippi at 1:40 of this interview tonight: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21…..1#29059683
It starts by Matthews accurately giving an example of a Republican governor who says his state badly needs stimulus money (and wants Congress to act. Barbour, a former head of the national GOP and involved in a DC lobbying firm, tries to blow Tweety off claiming that this package is just too focused on ’social problems’. And Barbour says ‘a trillion dollars is a terrible thing to waste’, as if he’s never heard the word I-r-a-q.
Tweety basically says, “Hey, Haley, I heard your Speaker of the House says [your state] needs the money, that he’s incredulous that your state won’t get money (because you’re not lobbying for it).” Watch Barbour’s face just before he recovers himself. Then goes after unemployment as ’social policy as welfare state 3.0′.
Tweety says, “Huh?”
Barbour is all about how people are too lazy to get umemployment, and besides it’ll cost employers in his state, and the bill ‘has strings attached’.
I hope the legislature in his state makes life really miserable for Barbour for a few weeks and months.
Can you imagine being a state legislator trying to write your state’s education budget for this biennium, and having to hear your own governor blather on
national teeveeyour InternetMachine about how he just thinks that big, federal budget might cause problems and he needs a lot more time to think about it?Whoa.
This really could get interesting.
All we’re really shown on CSPAN and the national news that feed into the InternetMachine are the federal level. I don’t know about the rest of you, but my state already cut $700 million in Higher Ed.
Barbour must think the GOP can reap some kind of PR coup by opposing this bill. I think they’re idiots led by clowns.
I have to give Tweety a hat tip for nonchalantly letting Barbour walk down the primrose path. Anyone here from Mississippi? If so, you have my condolences.
…which is why we need a comedian in the Senate to tell us what is really going on.
They’ve had their A-team working 24×7 on keeping that comedian out of the Senate for the vote on this very bill.
If the bill really is 42% tax cuts, and the R’s won’t vote for it, then the D’s shouldn’t either since the only reason the tax cuts are there is to get the R’s votes. It’s so simple.
Heads up, Senators returning.
Voting amendments next, sez Harry.
Totally OT “must read” in Vanity Fair about the recent British High Court ruling in the case of Binyam Mohamed and the subject of U.S.-British “intelligence-sharing”: You Be the Judge
Fascinating article — thanks very much.
Plus there’s a link there to the full judgement, first time I’ve been able to find one. It has been clear for a few days that Miliband and maybe the Obama admin are trying to defuse the issue by claiming that it is simply a standard understanding that control over shared intelligence is retained by the state that provides it. The High Court judges admit that principle (para 74), but then they go further. Rose’s sister is Mohamed’s defence attorney, and in my reading, anyway, she is right about paras 73-77 (begin on 25/34) — the judges aren’t talking about mere standard understandings there.
I loved this line (para 76):
A hit! A palpable hit!
Where is the text of the bill? Doesn’t the public deserve to see what they are actually about to pass before they pass it?
And another totally OT from Politico: Todd Palin found in contempt:
just put the fucking foodstamp funding back, boys and girls. taking it out was disgraceful, even for the likes of you.
Indeed ;^}
So Lindsey and his eyeliner are in, then? Crap.
BTW now Harry says tomorrow 12-3pm is for debate, then start again 1:00pm Monday for debate til 5:30p, cloture at 5:30p, vote at 6:00pm Monday, then conference immediately.
Not sure – others here will know about the eyeliner.
But it may be a good thing some of the debate is on Saturday. Many people won’t watch, but I’ll bet there’s a fairly large number of people tuning in — people being laid off at Boeing, WaMu, and Microsoft is kind of like finding out the polar ice caps are melting, IMHO.
No clue whether people will watch on Monday, but it would be interesting to know.
I’ve been surprised at the people that I’ve spoken to who really dislike politics, but have become really engaged because things are such a mess.
I don’t see apathy, like I did ten years ago.
I see seething anger.
Totally anecdotal, but it’s just different from anything that I’ve ever seen. (And yeah, I do realize that I’m only one person.)
Maybe the R’s stepped in it and the D’s can use debate tapes Saturday & Sunday to build up enough popular ire at the R’s to neutralize them in committee come Monday night. Pitchforks, torches, etc. (Metaphorically speaking.)
It is a consummation devoutly to be wish’d.
The POTUS on TV on Monday, when? After vote? Travel, surely after. Where’s the strategy there? I am sure there is one.
Non sequitor. Anyone know who was on Marine One, the Presidential helicopter, when it took off with POTUS on it for the first time to go to Wmsburg VA. The aides came out in two groups after him. BTW, they go in the back door, the pres. goes in the front, and at different times. Very royal. It was that way for Bush as well. (Saw it with me own eyes, when forced to attend a WH event).
It would be interesting which oned are considered the absolutely necessary ones. saw Gibbs, Love. Blurry Video on Dkos Al Rogers from Washington Times, the only source.
Must see TV. Watch Obama take the Marine’s salute and then do something no pres. has done in the history of the use of Marine One.
back in a sec with the link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSW8CSMhBJg
Obama at .59 Anyone with good sound might be able to pick up what the ground crew is saying. When Obama does the surprising thing, I think you hear one say, “very nice.”
Their chatter so to speak would be interesting to decode.
That was nice, and yes, I could hear the ground crew pretty clearly. I don’t want to be a spoiler, so I won’t repeat everything I heard because one of the voices describes what Obama did.
stop worrying about being a fricken spoiler and say it allready
some of us ain’t youtube compatabile
Sir!
There’s a marine standing stiffly and saluting smartly at the foot of the steps into Marine One. Obama approaches and stops in front of the marine, and you see the (no doubt startled) marine lower his hand for a moment, although we’re a long way away and vid is fuzzy. And then you hear the voices: “Very nice … [some unclear happy sounds] … He shook his hand … [more happy sounds].”
Hokay?
thanking our armed forces personnel ???
the bastid
the repuglitards are really gonna have a problem with that …
well, they COULD freak out over this, they ain’t exactly stable players in this game …
Obama leaned towards the Marine and said something while extending his hand.
Stunned, the Marine hesitatingly shook Obama’s hand while briefly replying and returned to saluting.
Kudos for the youngster for not fainting … imagine how much fun Limpballs would’ve had with that one ! (then again, for your own mental health, maybe you shouldn’t)
I think we were hearing the journalists. They loved it that the Marine was just so flabbergasted that O wanted to shake his hand. I’m guessing W wouldn’t even acknowledge his existence. He wasn’t even taught to consider looking at the prez rather than straight ahead!
Shocking all around.
Yes, those were the journalists, although the ground crew and the Marines will be talking about that moment for a long time.
‘Tis.
My bad, I meant to italicize the “is” but forgot b/c it’s been a really long day. Mea stoopid.
Oh, cleaning up lose ends on a Friday night, made bearable by Tweety and Rachel being sane and calling bullshit on insanity on my InternetMachine. So… ‘long day’…mea, mea…(sigh…)
Not literate enough to know ‘Adraba Scullion’.
But still enjoying the hell out of clips of Obama saying, “… then I you the argument [from the GOP] ‘this is not a stimulus bill, this is a Spending Bill. Whaddya think a Stimulus is**?! That’s the whole point. No seriously. That’s the point.”
At least he can see the lunacy in the GOP cliff-jumping.
I guess we’ll all need to laugh more to stay sane.
Thank God for TBogg and Jane Hamsher (!). And the Daily Show and Colbert.
And Rachel.
And the sane, witty Trash Talkers around this place.
** So there’s your ‘italicized is‘ 8^))
– Hamlet (II.ii)
Adraba Scullion: what a blog nym!
And incidentally I’m so very happy to be among a culturally literate cohort here.
(signed)
— Adraba Scullion
Definitely late — My 56 was intended to tie up the follow up to your 52.
Do watch Jon Stewart (online if you have speedy connection).
The GOP taketh my sanity away; Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow help restoreth it.
OT-fyi-The Prez to have big press conference Monday night on teevee….
I don’t want Obama to get 60 votes. I want him to make them filibuster night and day for two weeks, while he announces how many jobs were lost each day. It would be great theater, and when it was over, nobody would ever listen to these Republican fools ever again.
I have to agree. I’m tired of bribing the Corporatists with tax cuts for their votes and then getting sh*t on. Make them put their crazyness on display for everyone to see.
Okay. Time to pack it in ;-))
Here’s hoping Webb is eloquent and all over the Toobz by Monday.
And ‘two shoes’ for Lindsay Graham, and two more for Vitter (do watch Jon Stewart’s jabs at Vitter’s — VITTER’S!! — puffery about how Obama’s stimulus plan gives money to prevent STD’s. Vitter, aka ‘John’.
Lordy, I tell ya.
Haggis gots nuttin’ on Vitter.
Which, if you think about it is Jon Stewart’s loss, and therefore — ours.
BTW, Glen Greenwald and Jay Rosen were great on Bill Moyers tonight.
And, Rachel was on fire; she sort of did her own version of a “special comment.”
I loved watching Rachel gobble-up those repugs one after another…one by one. I imagine those preening prima donnas can’t help but watch themselves on teevee….being chewed-up and spit out…by a woman.
BTW, if you missed that Bill Moyers interview of Glenn Greenwald and Jay Rosen:
The video is here: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/jour…..watch.html
And the transcript is here: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/jour…..ript1.html
OT-Helen is reading Ann Coulter’s new book, chapter by chapter, so Margaret doesn’t have to. Today’s installment, “Does Ann Coulter have Opposable Thumbs?”
http://margaretandhelen.wordpress.com/
Helen who.
helen the grandma blogger
old women will say ANYTHING
they have no fear:
this is about the coulterguist, whom Helen is convinced has big feet
wisdom for the ages
Menzie Chinn, in the course of making a simple but cogent point about the stimulus bill “debate,” sparks a comment thread in which is demonstrated the length to which people will go to miss a point that they don’t feel it in their interest to acknowledge.
I was just going to offer the link to Prof. Chinn’s post as a useful tool, but the umpteenth “sunk cost” got to me, especially as this sort of thing is the rhetorical style among sophomores in economics —mea culpa!
It is routine in learning operations research and many other kinds of engineering to estimate the complexity of a procedure, say in terms of the number of calculations needed to perform it in a worst case, and to ascertain, at least to a ballpark extent, the required capacity to perform the procedure on a business scale. These are common classroom exercises that many people, for instance on Wall St., have done.
Fed Calls Consultants to Treat AIG, Stricken Markets; also here, where there’s an additional note, and for some insights into the source of the complexity, here, with its sequels. Note the similarities to the mounds-of-paper frauds that started showing up in the Northeast about 20 years ago.
If the Fed and the feds are truly calling uncle this early in the game, then the capacity constraints imposed by these complex frauds are almost necessarily going to impose all manner of further constraints on policy making. It gives me my own wave of nausea to say this, but it might explain why those Bad Bank proposals keep returning like zombies; it might allow us to limit the damage while still having a chance to catch at least some of the perps eventually, if they have to open their books to get the money.
Just sayin’.
Aw heck! If you’re gonna say it THAT eruditely, you’re gonna make me a believer ;-))
I was battling a winter bug for 2 days and was in no mood to watch the entire Senate fiasco.
Luckily KO & Teh Goddess™ had recaps on the main Repuke talking points.
I’d like to highlight one John S. McCain, who got 47% of the votes in your recently concluded election.
“Tax Cuts are Bad !”
“Tax Cuts are Good !”
“Hey, get off my LAWN !”
47% of voters wanted this guy to win or did they not understand the Ballot ?
EW Amy Goodman’s program on Friday was great
Geitner’s tax troubles far more “egregious” than Daschle’s.
http://www.democracynow.org/
Pulitzer Winners Jim Steele and Don Barlett: Geithner Tax Troubles Far More Egregious Than Daschle’s
Despite problems with unpaid taxes, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was confirmed last week, but Tom Daschle, President Obama’s nominee for Health and Human Services, had to withdraw his nomination for his own tax lapses. We speak to the Pulitzer-winning reporting team Jim Steele and Don Barlett on the breakdown of America’s tax system—and why they say Geithner’s lapses were far more egregious than Daschle’s. [includes rush transcript]
###The robotics piece is enlightening and disturbing
check this out, right on topic;
Supporters Of $1.3 Trillion Bush Tax Cuts In 2001 Now Call $900 Billion Recovery Plan Billion ‘Too Much’»
and they want to complain about ANY program that actually helps our economy
LEMMINGS
all that needs to be done is reclaim those assets which were redistibuted from the middle class and give those back
follow that by the reagan redistribution which caused the last depression
bing, our country again rises once again
Ya know, I’d almost like to see the Repubs grow a hankering to be “Captains of Industry” again, instead of having this fascination with them playing with money and their fellow citizens (the peons) frittering away their lives in “service industries”. A lot of a nation’s ability to survive depends on having the design-build-use-redesign cycle all happen within its borders. I guess the globalization idea was that the cycle could be split up and different steps occurring all over the globe, with corporations doing the orchestration, but I think that the corporatists/globalists forgot (or decided to blind themselves to) the fact that people live in geographical nations, states, provinces, and neighborhoods. There is a lot of daily life that depends on the sheer reality of proximity. You can’t rip out more and more essential pieces of people’s environments and send them to China and expect those impoverished environments to stagger along forever.
I just posted this a few threads back, but it fits here too. The Dollar is Toast – why not to pass this bill, and not for the RW talking points.
We do and will have a debt crisis.
But we do more urgently have a liquidity crisis. And the only way to pay off that debt is to get through this liquidity crisis and back on track. You can’t do that with stupid new employees and bad infrastructure and increasingly uncompetitive broadband and energy infrastructure.
I agree liquidity is the problem. I was throwing the article up for discussion
I’d much rather see something along the lines of what Jon Stewart and Kucinich have been promoting: direct relief to the people. Help us pay off our debts/increase our liquidity and build from the bottom up.
I’ve been talking about this for years in my classroom when we get to the Great Depression and comparing the problems then to now, and I’ve been comparing things since Clinton’s presidency, things have only gotten worse over the years.
Then – banks gambled our money directly in the stock market. Now it was real estate and whatever else they made up. Demand for the stocks available for purchase drove prices to unrealistic prices, same thing happened in the housing market today.
Then – tax policies concentrated money in the hands of the very wealthy. Now – well, same difference.
Then – underconsumption and overproduction led to loss of jobs. Now we don’t have the factories left to produce the items we buy on credit…another problem back then.
Then – drought in the Miss. Valley causes farming disaster. Now, the Ogalala is dropping 1′ a year because the same weather patterns that brought the dust storms are back, only we’re irrigating our way through it while we can.
Then – international fiscal meltdowns resulting from WW1 (and more) coupled with tariffs lead to drop off in international trade. Now, I believe it’s just a matter of time before countries stop trusting the value of our dollar.
the problem is too many banks in the gambling business, the problem is allowing them more assets to gamble
I really don’t care if the profiteers go under and their debt means nothing to me, as a matter of fact I believe we SHOULD let them go under and forgive their debt by caveat
I also think the government should lend the money and not take on the overhead that the banking middle man needs to process
ps, noonan, that quote is from your link not from your post
the person who wrote that quote gets it entirely wrong, the fundamental problem is not too much debt it’s giving credit to those people who lent against percieved value
Thanks.
See my post above, about why I posted the link.
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