Krugman: A Vote For A Republican, No Matter What You Think Of Him As A Person, is A Vote For Paralysis
Paul Krugman hits the nail right on the head. Now what are we going to do about it?
The truth is that given the state of American politics, the way the Senate works is no longer consistent with a functioning government. Senators themselves should recognize this fact and push through changes in those rules, including eliminating or at least limiting the filibuster. This is something they could and should do, by majority vote, on the first day of the next Senate session.
Don’t hold your breath. As it is, Democrats don’t even seem able to score political points by highlighting their opponents’ obstructionism.
It should be a simple message (and it should have been the central message in Massachusetts): a vote for a Republican, no matter what you think of him as a person, is a vote for paralysis. But by now, we know how the Obama administration deals with those who would destroy it: it goes straight for the capillaries. Sure enough, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, accused Mr. Shelby of “silliness.” Yep, that will really resonate with voters.
After the dissolution of Poland, a Polish officer serving under Napoleon penned a song that eventually — after the country’s post-World War I resurrection — became the country’s national anthem. It begins, “Poland is not yet lost.”
Well, America is not yet lost. But the Senate is working on it.
What you going to do about it Paul?
Hi Susie,
I thought the best line in the Krugman piece was this: "Instead of re-enacting the decline and fall of Rome, we’re re-enacting the dissolution of 18th-century Poland."
As someone whose forbears all departed occupied Poland in the first decade of the 20 Century, I can relate to the heritage here. The dithering in the Senate is astonishingly bad. Just as with the Sejm.
But what, you ask, am I going to do about it? I'm thinking about pouring another beer to honor 21st Century Polish dissolution!
Nazdrovia!
where the Democratic Party's fecklessness emboldens the incoherent Right to appear "dynamic" by comparison.
No matter what you think of them as a person, is a vote for a spineless weenie who will rollover and wet on themselves when the Republican's get upset and say mean things.
Oh and Obama is now the anti-Robin Hood, take from the poor and give to the Rich.
What a disappointment this has all been.
Goodnight, Frau Blücher
you consider that the Dems have been paralysied with a 60 majority...But I will vote independent-may be a time for them at all levels of Gov..A Perot revolution..Brown was elected as an outsider--rarely mentioned the repub connection and still talks about social liberal -fiscal conservative..
Obama has lead but not by the nose as Congressional Dems decry they need.. Pitiful state of affairs!
...because, while I'm not a historian, I did have history prof who described the Polish situation in the 1700's as, "national suicide."
n/t
and a vote for a Dem is a vote for capitulation to paralysis.
could be any worse than Bush or Obama. They both are deliberately screwing us. The screwing would continue under Palin because she is so clueless.
I would hardly call his having been elected as a further sign of "paralysis"!
Had Coakley been elected, the rotten healthcare reform legislation that was nothing more than putting a corporate "for-profit" ball and chain around the throats of the American People for at LEAST the next ten years would have already been signed into law!!! And believe me, once AHIP gets it's hooks in us it will be about as easy to remove them as it would be to excise a malignant tumor from the middle of a person's BRAIN!!!!
If Obama and his Democratic cronies have finally decided that the jig is up on their despotic healthcare "reform" legislation and that they will need to "re-think" their MANDATES (that Obama swore he was against in the debates with Clinton!), FINES and increasingly higher and unaffordable DEDUCTIBLES and other give-aways to big pharma and the corporate criminals who don't really care one bit about the health of the American people, then good.
If it took the voters in Massachusetts to slam the brakes on Obama/Pelosi/Reid and Rahm's attempt to try to force the American People to buy into a system whose primary purpose in the world is to make PROFITS FOR THEIR WEALTHY SHAREHOLDERS, then I, for one, am HAPPY THAT SCOTT BROWN WAS ELECTED!
I hope this makes the Democrats take pause and perhaps now they will at LEAST allow an OBJECTIVE DISCUSSION OF EXTENDING MEDICARE TO ALL AMERICANS.
Until we get serious about removing the PROFITS from our healthcare equation we will continue to be ROBBED BLIND by the rotten health insurance corporations.
I have HAD IT!!! with being IGNORED BY THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
F 'em if they don't get the message loud and clear!
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
You are echoing what most of us know and are trying desperately to inform the millions of clueless voters who are blinded by the lies and propaganda of Fox News and the Conservative media.
"a vote for a Republican, no matter what you think of him as a person, is a vote for paralysis" !!!!
You want proof???
Just look how the Republican/Conservative Bushies destroyed our world causing untold misery.
Look no further then Schwarzenegger to see how he is butchering our lives here in California, inflicting massive human destruction and suffering with his failed Republican/Conservative agenda.
We should make the Democrats the majority of congress and make a Democrat President.
oh wait that has been done.
the false two party drama in words is tedious, childish, and avoids the reality that the American Government no longer functions.
along? To kill the lousy HCR bill by letting Scotty be elected? Rove may be a weasel, but there are smarter and even bigger weasels out here. Not just manipulators, but MASTER manipulators! HA!
Never forget what Obama the presidential candidate said when asked " Who would be welcome at the table " when negotiating a health care reform bill and Obama said( I'm paraphrasing)"There will be room for everyone , including the health insurers & bid pharma"? And these idiotic,spineless,gutless democrats still don't have any fuckin' clue!One example of their cowardly bent: When Ed Shultz was talking about running for the senate, republican lawyers contacted MSNBC and told the network to make Ed cease & desist from even talking about running for the senate and Ed quit talking about it! Sarah Palin does the EXACT same thing when being interviewed by Chris Wallace on Sunday and a deafening sound of silence from the democrats, and these assholes want US to vote for them again so we can have more of the same! Not for this cat, unless there is a miracle and ALL democrats, male and female, grow a HUGE pair and finally get mean and dirty! Oh never mind, we're talking about democan'ts!
Scott will NOT win when he his term is up!When dems and independents see this guy for what he really is they will get rid of him but you can't tell that to the right, because they see what they want to see not what the reality is!
Obama has been corporate owned from Day One. We have the wholly corporate owned GOP which does not want to govern & the partially owned Dems who cannot govern. If ever there was a need for a "Main Street Party", it's now. The corrupted, so called two-party system, has fixed the game to exclude any group who threatens Wall Street's monopoly over "our" government. Howard Dean was pushed out of the process in 2004 because no major party will allow an actual progressive anywhere near the Oval Office.
Street Party."
has a ring to it.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
to renew my driver's license and during the process I had the opportunity to change my voter registration from Democrat to "something else"...
Ordinarily I would have just checked the box stating, "NO CHANGE".
But today I actually paused to check out the "other" choices.
I was half-tempted to check the box for "The Peace and Freedom Party".
The "Main Street Party" is kinda catchy...
All I know is, I'm ready to dump the Democrats. They really do NOT represent me anymore.
Especially considering their positions on torture, war (Obama just approved the biggest military budget in HISTORY!), healthcare reform, the environment (Obama is promoting NUCLEAR ENERGY!!!) and on and on.
I think the American people are READY for a new Progressive Party in this country. I can't think of two more deserving political parties to get DUMPED in the process, as I believe there would be plenty of disgruntled Republicans who would support a party that stood for honesty, balanced budgets, common sense and basic Constitutional principles.
How long are we going to WAIT before we file for a freakin' DIVORCE FROM THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY!!!????
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
!
Some stuff you can't make up!
Sounds Socialist...
NOBODY 2012
"is A Vote For" , don't need to be a Nobel prize winner to figure that out .
Obama calling GOP bluff on bipartisanship
Feb. 8: The Washington Posts's Ezra Klein talks about whether President Barack Obama's proposed bipartisan health reform meeting will finally yield a passable bill or will only be another distraction for Republicans to use as a stall tactic.
----------------
Facts confound old Republican tactic
Feb. 8: Chris Hayes of The Nation talks with Keith Olbermann about Republicans exposed by intelligence officials for their absurd criticisms of the Obama administration's approach to combating terrorism.
(I know there's another thread, but this actually supports Paul's diagnosis. KO and Klein work the issue of obstructionism.)
Some stuff you can't make up!
Your first link starts with the list of "preconditions" the GOP has concocted as a roadblock to accepting Obama's invite to talk health care legislation.
Couldn't be a more vivid example of the Party of Paralysis.
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
Oh the irony - The villagers are shuttered in from a massive snowstorm - complaining of paralysis of city services.
Too bad. I feel a pity tear coming on.
'Men do not go to the gallows and put their heads in a noose if they can avoid it.' - Mark Twain
This is a good point and yes - I'd love to see them campaign on it.
But I'd hate to see it as the default position due to the inept performance of the Obama White House.
I'd rather be able to sell the democrats on their merits and not be forced into a situation where the only thing the dems had to offer was that they weren't re=Thugs.
They stink to high-heaven as it is.
*
I hope the democrats find a REAL democrat to primary Obama in 2012, because if they don't, they will get butchered!
This DLC republican-lite corporate coke sucker is as useless as tits on a bull!
This guy was given the keys to the entire country to do as he wished, and he turned to assholes like Rahm Emmanuel to guide him. The same DLC assholes who lost the dems 60 year majority in 1994.
I can remember union people, family members and friends, saying the same thing now as they did then; "what the hell is the difference if I vote republican or democrat, the democrats are not much different than the republicans." And honestly folks, some of them are even worse!
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
Isn't that practically the definition of conservative?
Constipation.
“The greatest evildoers are those who don’t remember because they have never given thought to the matter, and, without remembrance, nothing can hold them back,”
If I trusted that most voters in this country had any common sense.
45 million people voted for an old man and a bimbo after voting for Bush twice.
The way the country and the press has turned on Obama and completely forgotten how we got in this mess do you really want a Republican Congress in charge with no filibuster.
The filibuster did not stop Bush from ruining the country.
Their are ways around the filibuster. Harry Reid doesn't have the balls to do what needs to be done to get around it.
That's the problem.
it keeps a Republican Congress from passing stupid but somewhat popular legislation, such as allowing oil companies to drill in some of America's most pristine and undeveloped places like ANWR.
I'd LOVE to get rid of the filibuster if REALLY stupid ideas were not popular occasionally.
SOMETIMES the minority opinion is right.
But this brings me to another point:
I hear all these people talking about revolution because our government is corrupt and not working for us - but what happens when we have revolution and you have moronic teabaggers vs. small government Ron Paul libertarians vs. GOOD government progressives?
We're screwed.
The ideas people have about what is good for us and our country can be 180 degrees from the next person's idea of what is good for us.
would the Repubs change their strategy and respond to Obama's pleas for bi-partisanship and compromise when everything is already working so well for them? They are willing to sacrifice the present system and its' collateral victims because they are on a crusade to install their own brand of governance.
The Democrats overestimate the ability and desire of a large segment of the public to overcome their fears and biases, seek different points of view, and then objectively analyze actions rather than words before they take a position.
The Republicans, while touting their reliance on precedent and past history, have changed are the rules of the political game and the Democrats are still trying to play by the old rules. It will come back to bite the Dems.
That even if the dems have not done exactly to our liking. If we get mad and vote for a republican we will get even worse government. It really is the lesser of the two evils. Vote democratic and we might stand a chance of fixing it. Vote republican and you no for sure you are going to hell. Meaning they will make life a living hell for you here. Wake up people.
republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness!
Both parties are owned by corporations, so you get the same basic policies whoever is in charge. Actually, the Democrats are worse than the GOP since they want to place government powers like eminent domain in the hands of corporations.
It's obvious the only reason Krugman supports Democratic control is because he himself is a corporatist, and legislative paralysis is a hindrance to the expansion of corporate power.
In addition to putting some solutions through Congress, using reconciliation or whatever it takes, the Dems ought to be pinning the GOP down. They would do this by putting up some small, straight-forward bills and force the GOP to get on the record as opposing them or rejecting them. They could even do more of the tactic that the Dems in the House are supposed to be doing: putting the Ryan "budget" proposal into a bill and forcing the GOP to vote on it. The bills should all be substantive rather than the "gotcha" type bills (e.g., flag burning, etc.) that the GOP is fond of; the impact of the pin-down is going to be much more effective electorally if the issues are near and dear to all Americans. Let the GOP vote on whether Social Security should be privatized, Medicare should be put on a firmer basis by removing the income cap on the payroll tax, some clear financial regulations, etc. The bills need to be as simple as possible (no 2000 page tomes) so that the GOP can't weasel out by successfully misrepresenting the bill. Make the GOP choose between alienating their right-wingnut base and the rest of the electorate—their success to date has been their ability to rally their radical base while still convincing many in the middle that the GOP is somehow interested in the well-being of mainstream Americans.
This two-pronged strategy will resonate with the voters: the Dems will have shown that they can accomplish something if the voters back them and secondly, that the GOP really is way out of touch with reality as it's perceived anywhere outside of the Faux News Network.
If, G-d forbid, Palin becomes president not only will she wreck the country worse than Reagan, #41 & #43 did we will have lost all credibility with the rest of the world.
Things will change after that...none of this, "I call filibuster, it's dead" rules. We want to see some of these assholes reading from a phone book for as long as their incontinent bodies can hold out.
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S. Thompson
it's not just the republicans, the democratic caucus didn't know how to whip a viable supermajority anyways.
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