[The Soup Nazi]

 

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

 

they got the elephants backwards because the real republican party has no head and is talking out of their asshole(s)

[The Soup Nazi]

Paul Krugman's NYT newsletter, February 9:

The covert unifier that America needed

In his inaugural speech, President Joe Biden talked a lot about “unity” — which made many progressives, myself included, very nervous. Would he do what President Obama did, scaling down his economic plans and wasting time in a vain effort to win bipartisan support?

It turns out that we needn’t have worried. As I wrote in today’s column, Democrats appear to have learned some lessons from the Obama years, and Biden’s Congressional allies are moving fast on what seems likely to be a big economic relief package — one that seems almost certain to pass the Senate, barely, on a straight party-line vote.

Inevitably, some in the media are chiding Biden for, as they see it, going back on his promise to seek unity. But anyone who paid attention in 2009 knows that there was never a chance of getting support for economic relief, or for that matter almost anything else, from Republicans in Congress. If Biden had tried to move their way, they would simply have moved the goal posts, keeping compromise forever out of reach.

Yet there is a sense in which Biden actually is delivering on unity. He isn’t giving any ground to Republican politicians; but his main proposals for Covid-19 relief draw broad support from ordinary voters, including many self-identified Republicans. So he isn’t winning over any G.O.P. apparatchiks, because that’s an impossible task, but he’s unifying most of the country behind his agenda all the same. That is, he’s a stealth unifier, with his cross-party appeal flying under the radar of pundits focused only on what politicians and activists say.

In fact, public support for Biden’s agenda is so strong that it poses some puzzles. For Biden’s economic plans have much broader support than Obama’s did at this stage of his presidency. Why? And why won’t any Republican politicians go along with plans this popular?

Here’s a chart I find eye-popping. It compares the public’s views on the Obama stimulus in 2009, as reported in a CNN poll, with recent views on Biden’s relief package, as estimated by Quinnipiac:

 

In case you’re wondering, that 2009 poll was taken while Obama was still in his honeymoon period, with personal favorables substantially higher than Biden’s now (although Biden fares decently, certainly compared with his predecessor). So this reflects popular judgments on the policies, not the men. What’s going on?

Well, I have a theory. I’ve spent pretty much the whole pandemic shouting, to mainly deaf ears, that economic relief isn’t “stimulus.” My guess is that despite the best efforts of many in the news media to conflate the two, most voters get that; they see Biden’s American Rescue Plan as, well, a rescue plan, not an attempt to pump up demand.

Not that there’s anything wrong with pumping up demand, which was in fact exactly what the nation needed (and didn’t get enough of) in 2009. But Keynesian economics, which underlies the case for stimulus in a depressed economy, is hard. Many people — including some professional economists — just can’t wrap their minds around the idea that deficit spending can create jobs and make the nation richer. Even F.D.R. tried to balance the budget in 1937, with disastrous results.

On the other hand, the idea of helping people when disaster strikes is intuitive, and at least for now most Americans are feeling generous.

Republican politicians, of course, don’t share that feeling. And they don’t see any need to pretend otherwise. They’re much more afraid of the party’s base, which doesn’t even accept Biden’s legitimacy, than they are of being seen obstructing aid to Americans in need.

But that more or less by definition means that they can’t be won over, no matter what Biden does. The reality of where we are politically, hidden in plain sight, is that on policy Biden actually has unified a surprisingly large majority of Americans.

Quick Hits

Even Republicans used to support those $2000 checks.

But the Republican base hates compromise.

After all, their leaders blame Nancy Pelosi for the attack on the Capitol. Really.

Conservative think tanks hate the idea of helping children.

[!@#$%!]

iran has begun to produce uranium metal. great job, stable genius! a fine legacy...

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

iran has begun to produce uranium metal. great job, stable genius! a fine legacy...

Javad Zarif said just days ago that Teheran is ready to come back to the JCPOA if the United States does, but it's "the deal you made, or nothing". And regardless of how one feels about Iran, who can blame 'em?

[The Soup Nazi]

From Fareed Zakaria's newsletter:

America’s Political Unreality

As the US Senate proceeds with former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, two recent New York Times columns by Thomas B. Edsall make clear that America’s problems run deeper than any Senate-chamber drama.

A CNN poll from January, conducted by SSRS, found that 58% of Republicans surveyed believed there was solid evidence that President Biden didn’t legitimately secure enough votes in November to defeat Trump and win the presidency, and in a column published Wednesday, Edsall cites more polls and other research as indicative of a troubling—and troublingly partisan—rift. “Asked if Trump has acted ‘responsibly’ or ‘irresponsibly’ since the Nov. 3 election,” Edsall writes of a mid-January Washington Post/ABC News survey, “the 1002 adults polled chose ‘irresponsibly’ by 66-30. Republicans, in contrast, chose ‘responsibly’ by 66-29.”

Conspiracy-theory thinking has flourished, Edsall wrote in a column last week exploring the drivers of QAnon and painting a choleric portrait of the contemporary right: “The problem of keeping the extremist fringe at arm’s length has plagued the Republican Party for decades—dating back to Joseph McCarthy and the John Birch Society—but nothing in recent American history has reached the crazed intensity of Donald Trump’s perseverating, mendacious insistence that he won a second term in November. That he is not alone—that millions continue to believe in his delusions—is terrifying.”

As Edsall notes, Harvard scholar Daniel Ziblatt told Vox last month that he believes the GOP “now looks like a European far-right party. But the big difference … is that the US only has two parties and one of them is like a European far-right party.” To Edsall, that raises disturbing questions about the country’s political future.

[Skuj]

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/...o-acquit-trump

I had allowed myself to think that Jan 6th to Moscow Mitch was akin to Christmas Morning for Ebenezer Scrooge. Silly me.

[Skuj]

I predict that 3 GOP will have the balls to vote for conviction.

[Skuj]

Wow. 7!!!

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by Skuj

Wow. 7!!!

So 43 motherfuckers.

I know:

 

"I peg you as a 'glass is half empty' kinda guy, am I right?"

[Skuj]

Originally Posted by Skuj

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/...o-acquit-trump

I had allowed myself to think that Jan 6th to Moscow Mitch was akin to Christmas Morning for Ebenezer Scrooge. Silly me.

McConnell drives me insane. He basically agrees with the Dems, but votes to acquit on some silliness.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by Skuj

McConnell drives me insane. He basically agrees with the Dems, but votes to acquit on some silliness.

So silly (BULLSHITTY, in fact) that he himself doesn't believe it. His seat may not be at stake (polls showed Kentucky was 50/50 on convicting Seditious Fatfuck), but with over 80% of "your" senators voting to acquit, you start thinking about the future of your position as Leader.

Motherfuckers, all of 'em.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

So silly (BULLSHITTY, in fact) that he himself doesn't believe it.

Summarized by a New York Times reader:

For Mitch McConnell to publicly profess Donald Trump’s guilt, while hiding behind his claim of the unconstitutionality of the impeachment trial, is hypocrisy par excellence from the master of hypocrisy. Mr. McConnell himself refused to call back the Senate to receive the article of impeachment while Mr. Trump was in office, thereby creating the very impediment to conviction he cites.

Given that the House voted to impeach on Jan. 13, and this trial took five days, there would have been time for the trial to reach its conclusion before the change of administration on Jan. 20.

[The Soup Nazi]

The real question is, why does it have to be these fucking assholes. The GOP can lift a rock and find any number of mooks who want government to be minimized and abortion to be banned. But no; in addition, they just have to be the Lindsey Grahams and Marco Rubios and Ted Cruces * of this world - wretched walking vomits who shamelessly pull the most disgusting 180ºs I've seen in my life. And the obvious kicker: THEY KEEP GETTING REELECTED. HOW FUCKING STUPID IS THEIR FUCKING ELECTORATE. Fine, believe the Reagan bullshit that has fucked the United States up for forty years, but take a goddamn minute and ponder this for a change.

Too much to ask? It is, I know. And it happens everywhere - the fact that it's the U.S. amplifies it, but in my own country... eh, I'll leave that boring crap for another post.

(* In Spanish, the plural of "cruz" is "cruces", so don't give me shit over my spelling. )

[h8kurdt]

Nice to not have Bytor and co adamantly saying Trump was innocent of all wrongdoing. Not sure I could deal with that atm. Thing I hate the most is the total corruption by the CUNTS.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

Nice to not have Bytor and co adamantly saying Trump was innocent of all wrongdoing. Not sure I could deal with that atm.

I was thinking the same last night.

[!@#$%!]

yup

[Skuj]

I'm watching what is happening to those in the GOP who criticize Trump, and.....

https://blog.usejournal.com/10-signs...t-1921eb5a3857

On another note, the announcement of a 9/11 style independent commission into Jan 6th is welcome news.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by Skuj

I'm watching what is happening to those in the GOP who criticize Trump, and.....

https://blog.usejournal.com/10-signs...t-1921eb5a3857

10 out of 10.

[The Soup Nazi]

You gotta be fucking kidding me:

House Republicans demand answers from Pelosi on security decisions leading up to Capitol riot

Republicans say there are 'many important questions' about Pelosi's 'responsibility for the security'

Yeah, I'm sure she diminished the security in order to commit suicide-by-QAnon. Pieces of shit, these FUCKS.