The question asked by nations around the world in 2016 was “Why is US politics so stupid?” because America’s idiotic Electoral College system allowed Trump to become president even though he did not win the popular vote. Now nations will again be asking “Why is US politics so stupid”
Continue readingTag: debt ceiling
The Disaffected Lib: China Warns Washington to Act on Debt Ceiling
When you have a serious debt problem and your biggest creditor gives you a slap upside the head maybe it’s a good time to rethink what’s not going right at home. The Chinese government has conveyed a sharp message to Washington – stop acting like children. Beijing demanded US President
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Debt ceiling negotiations: folding the bad bluffs
The White House has now declared that it is ruling out the two possible executive branch work arounds that would have potentially allowed them to bypass the congressional GOP’s attempt to extract massive concessions on the typically minor and procedural debt ceiling issue. Namely, Obama will not use the tricks
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: Talking to political adversaries: Tips on reaching across the aisle
Tips on talking to political adversaries. Moving past politics, partisanship and labels, recognizing corporatism masquerading as progressivism or conservatism, and going straight to the issues.
Continue readingDeath By Trolley: Cenk Uygur Vs. Fareed Zakaria on Progressive Dissatisfaction With Obama
In this clip from The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur responds to CNN‘s Fareed Zakaria. Zakaria criticize’s American liberals for their strong dissatisfaction with President Obama, saying among other things that they need to grow up, that they need to learn to appreciate compromise, and the like. Uygur responds by going on the offense and staying […]
Continue readingRedBedHead: More Capitalism vs Democracy
I was reading this article in Foreign Policy – a “debate” between two highly respected international economists, Nouriel Roubini and Ian Bremmer when I came acros the two quotes below. What was interesting was just how similar they were to the quote I …
Continue readingS&P on downgrade: “…the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.”
Just in case you didn’t get that the first time around. This is a point the Democrats (and progressive media/bloggers need to hammer) for the next few weeks. But they won’t. The right is massed with talking points blaming the left for the defeat. But the text of the S&P downgrade doesn’t specifically call out the Democratic . . . → Read More: S&P on downgrade: “…the majority of Republicans in Congress continue to resist any measure that would raise revenues, a position we believe Congress reinforced by passing the act.”
Continue readingRedBedHead: Americans Hate Congress Want Jobs
This New York Times poll is interesting. It shows that despite the media onslaught and the lies pumped out by the Republicans, nearly two-thirds of Americans believe that creating jobs ought to be a higher priority than making cuts. If we broke it down…
Continue readingbastard.logic: Another Stop Along the Road to Damascus
by matttbastard The pullquote from one of David Frum’s latest eviscerations of contemporary USian conservative folly, a meditative riff on Susan Sontag’s infamous “Were our enemies right?” speech, was making the rounds yesterday (eventually getting linked by the subject of Frum’s … Continue reading →
Continue readingRedBedHead: After The Debt Ceiling: Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Economic Meltdown
It must have been pretty weak pixie dust, that debt ceiling agreement that was supposed to stave off imminent collapse, put America on a sound economic footing and bring sunshine and joy to the democratic peoples of the earth, because its affect on the…
Continue readingRed Tory v.3.0.3: Market Craps on Debt Ceiling Deal
Funny that shortly after the U.S. Congress passed the largest – and arguably most catastrophically stupid – deficit reduction package in history, the market promptly reacted by taking a nosedive. Apparently, the ugly, job-killing “compromise” hastily cobbled together by U.S. … Continue reading →
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Happy Civic Holiday… and why Obama did the deal he did.
To all of you in Canada who get this first Monday off, whether it’s called Civic Holiday or whatever, all the best to you. As for politics on this day, attention has turned to our US neighbour’s attempts to get their debt ceiling agreement in place before they default tomorrow. A tentative deal has been reached, which still has to be voted on and passed, but many progressives and liberals – both in the US and here in Canada – are dismayed at the Democrats and President Obama’s unwillingness to force the Republicans to compromise more in the agreement. They view it as a sellout of Democratic and progressive/liberal […]
Continue readingMaybe it’s just me
…but today’s National Post carries a headline that made me do a doubletake to find out if it was about a real story or just an analogy for the Great Out-of-Control Debt Ceiling Debate that’s been dragging on in the States lately. Kn…
Continue readingRedBedHead: Republocrats Agree To Sodomize Americans, Fund Israel
…and I don’t mean sodomy in the fun frolicky sense of the world. What I mean is that they’ve agree that the deficit will not be “fixed” by raising taxes on the wealthy – whose tax breaks (along with multiple unwinnable and expensive wars & a defe…
Continue readingImagine…
…a world where Democrats didn’t always fold like cheap card tables at a trailer park bingo hall.
Continue readingRedBedHead: Ross Perot, the Tea Party: Why Are Third Party Politics In the US So Crazy?
As radical as they think that they are, the Tea Party follows a pattern of attempts to create a third party in the US political duopoly – which, let’s face it, is a one party state with two factions. The constant pressure to put aside “partisan” politi…
Continue readingT(bag)-minus 3 days til Debtmageddon
I knew this day would come, and finally, it’s arrived… but incredibly, it’s much worse than I ever anticipated. I refer to the furious fracas going on south of the border over raising the US Debt Ceiling: that wholly self-inflicted hemorrhaging scalp wound in the American economic psyche also known as “The Debt Crisis”. As […]
Continue readingRed Tory v.3.0.3: The Platinum Debt Solution
While in all probability America’s so-called “debt ceiling” will be raised next week – just as it routinely has been for the last 74 times since 1962 – the utterly dysfunctional political dynamic in Washington in Washington has turned what … Continue reading →
Continue readingRedBedHead: US Debt War Will Lead To Recession
Hate to say it folks but there’s about a snowball’s chance in hell that the world won’t have returned to recession by the end of this year. There are many factors involved that make this likely – the necessary slowing of China’s growth, the defaults an…
Continue readingThey Call Me "Mr. Sinister": Just Say No To Terrorism
The Republican Party is holding the United States specifically and the world economy in general, hostage. Obama, if he had any stones at all, should never have negotiated with them at all. He should have labeled them what they are, terrorists, and ref…
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