Budget talks: This is getting nasty

"Well, you know Sean, Luxembourg is such a huge threat to the U.S. economically. Sure they're only half the size of Rhode Island, and their total population is less than Albuquerque. But I'm tellin' ya' Sean, they're dangerous."

 

Of all the opinions in this affair, that is one of the least compelling. Even in China, Xinhua is a joke.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/world/asia/04china.html

 

The Chinese are upset because even though we think they own us, they've bought so much debt we own them. USA -- Too Big to Fail.

 

From Mike Allen's Playbook and on the Tea Party

Would the Tea Party even exist if Obama was white or if McCain had been elected?

 

Perhaps the first. They wouldn't for the second.

 

Not only that, but we're their biggest export market.

If our economy collapses, it hurts them. Even higher interest rates could slow consumer spending, which would hurt them.

 

We are so fucked.

 

When you are in the minority - it's a lot easier to pop off. You are the ultimate backseat driver. But when you are in the front seat, you have to keep the car on the road.
I'm sure Pelosi didn't want to keep funding the Iraq War, defunding it would have been really popular with progressive - but she was in charge, which meant not doing what you want to do, but doing what you must do.
""Leadership is getting someone to do what they don't want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve." Tom Landry

 

It's easy to look at that and say, "Look, they're hypocrites," without looking back and seeing that in many instances, those increases were part of larger budget bills or had amendments tacked on to them, and those were the factors that led to "no" votes. Of course, a broader perspective of reality makes it so much harder to make someone look bad.

 

Politics has become tennis - you better win the games when you have the serve. Used to be you could get a chunk of the opposition party on big votes - now they are viewed as tent poles for the next election.