Political Irony

“We are having in this country, America, supposedly a first world nation, an argument about whether we should pay our bills. And the Republicans – the conservative party – says no. Paying bills is for squares, man. That whole ‘money’ thing is a trap. Their economic plan is like, we’re hitchhiking to a Phish concert, and if we get a ride from a trucker and he asks us to chip in for gas, we’ll just give him a hand job.” – Bill Maher

“I think I know now why we are occupying Iraq. In case we have to sell America and move to a smaller country.” – Bill Maher

“President Obama is starting to get tough. He said he’s reached his limit and he will not give in on his debt ceiling position even if it costs him his presidency. Well, that should make the Republicans fold. ‘We’ve got to save Obama’s presidency.'” – Jay Leno

“I understand the Republican’s frustration. They came in pretending to negotiate. The least Obama could do would be to pretend to listen.” – Bill Maher

“According to a new Gallop poll, if the election were held tomorrow a no name Republican would beat President Obama. Today Tim Pawlenty said, ‘A no-name Republican? That’s me. I could win! I’m the new President?'” – Jay Leno

“Republicans have to stop thinking up intricate psychological explanations for why liberals don’t like Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann. Let me save you all some time. Are you ready? Because they’re crazy people. People who are not that bright and full of awful ideas. Pretty much the same exact reasons we didn’t care about George W. Bush, and make jokes about him. So trust me, it’s not because they have breasts. It’s because they are boobs.” – Bill Maher

“And when I point out that Sarah Palin is a vainglorious braggart, a liar, a whiner, a professional victim … a know it all, a chiseler, a bully who sells patriotism like a pimp, and the leader of a strange family of inbred weirdoes straight out of The Hills Have Eyes, that’s not sexist. I’m saying it because it’s true, not because it’s true of a woman.” – Bill Maher

“Michele Bachmann proudly tells the story of how she has no desire to become a tax lawyer, but her husband commanded her to. That’s right, he commanded her to become a tax lawyer, and what are you going to do. It says so right in the bible. She quotes it, ‘wives you are to be submissive to your husbands,’ and I’m the sexist? That’s weird, but you know what’s really weird? Michele Bachmann tells her husband I’ll do anything you want me to do, and his response isn’t let’s have a three way or I want to cover you in Cool Whip. It’s I want you to be a tax lawyer. That is some sick twisted shit.” – Bill Maher

“Everybody needs to just calm down (about Carmageddon). They’re fixing a stretch of the roadway. It’s an unpleasant bit of business that we have to get through – sort of like the way Michele Bachmann’s husband thinks about sex with his wife.” – Bill Maher

“Thank you, Arnold Schwarzenegger for starring in an upcoming western ‘The Last Stand.’ It’ll probably be good for you to shoot some blanks for awhile.” – Jimmy Fallon

“In last night’s 50th Annual Congressional Baseball Game the Democrats beat the Republicans 8-2. Both parties say these games are important because it shows the American people that they can really get along and accomplish something when it’s meaningless.” – Jay Leno

“There’s a move to divide California into two states: the state of poverty and the state of bankruptcy. The problem is coming up with a new name for Southern California since ‘New Mexico’ is already taken.” – Jay Leno

“Ann Coulter canceled her appearance on Piers Morgan’s show at the last minute and now she’s banned her for life. I know, I was also like, ‘I don’t care.'” – Craig Ferguson

“Two Delta planes collided on the runway in Boston. The passengers are all OK, except for Delta’s $50 collision fee. The air traffic controllers were just glad they weren’t awake to see the collision.” – Jimmy Fallon

“New Rule: Now that the social network ‘Google +’ has arrived expressly to try and destroy Facebook and Twitter the way Facebook and Twitter blew away MySpace right after MySpace obliterated Friendster the Internet must admit that it doesn’t really understand the concept of ‘friendship.'” – Bill Maher

“It’s so tough to get tickets for the new ‘Harry Potter’ movie that Rupert Murdoch had to hack into MovieFone.” – Craig Ferguson

[Reposted from Truthout, written by Greg Palast]

Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist” gave debtors’ prison a bad rap. Too bad. I’d say that locking away GOP Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a penitentiary for deadbeats seems like a darn good idea.

Let’s talk about how we ended up in this pickle, bucking up against the “debt ceiling.” From 2001 to 2008, a Republican president took an annual surplus of $86 billion left for him by Bill Clinton and ran up the budget deficit to over half a trillion in a year ($642 billion in 2008). Altogether, George W. Bush blew up the national debt by over $3 TRILLION – then left the bills to Barack Obama.

For eight years, Bush spent like a drunk monkey. The world was the GOP’s Bergdorf and they had our credit card. If there was a shiny, new war on the shelf, they just had to have it: Iraq, Afghanistan, and let’s not forget the Fantasy Wars, the half a trillion dollars a year on fancy-ass weapons for a war that won’t happen. (Example: the Virginia Class submarine. The V-class was designed to attack Soviet subs. There are no more Soviet subs, but Bush ordered three dozen anyway – at $1.8 billion each.)

And tax cuts? Don’t get me started!

The Bush administration acted just like Sarah Palin when she was set loose in that Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis – grabbing whatever she could carry because Sarah could put it on someone else’s account.

The GOP’s fattened frat boys feasted – but when the waiter arrived with the bill, the belching rich kids looked around, pointed at some poor schmuck sweeping the floor, Mr. John Q. Veteran, and said, “THAT GUY will pay.”

By the way: Congressman Cantor, the guy leading the Republicans’ refusal to lift the debt ceiling, voted for the V-class sub as well as Bush’s bogus scavenger hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But now Cantor doesn’t want to pay the bill.

Y’know, Congressman, maybe you think my parents were fools because they taught me: If you buy it, you pay for it.

Apparently, that’s not the rule at Cantor’s country club.

The sick assumption of this entire debt ceiling debate, as we hear from talking heads whether on Fox or PBS, is that this is our deficit; as if you and I got a tax break or Amazon delivered that submarine to our door.

And the flapping lips on TV also assume that there must be some kind of “compromise” in which the spending spree by the rich must be paid for by the working class. The Washington elite agree we must pay for tax holidays for hedge funds by closing health clinics.

Of course, the GOP is right about one thing. President Tiger Wuss will do just that: make the poorest among us pay the debts of the richest. Here we have a bunch of economic terrorists – “Agree to all our demands or the economy gets it!” – and Obama’s idea of leadership is to offer the berserkers three-quarters of what they demand.

Thank the Lord and Michele Bachmann that 75 percent isn’t enough for these greedsters.

Solution: Don’t pay the banksters

There’s another wrong assumption controlling this debate over debt, that the banks, the debt holders, must be paid. When the bankers and the Chinese and the Saudis lent Bush three trillion dollars for his wild-ass buying party, they were betting, like any investor, on the good faith of the borrower to pay it back.

So, let Hu Jintao and King Abdullah stick a collection agency on Cantor and the other Republican shirkers. Repossess their limousines or send The Boys around to remind Cantor what happens when you don’t pay what you owe.

The president should say to Hu, the Sheik and Goldman-Sachs:

I have identified $3 trillion in Treasury notes issued between 2001 and 2008 which were lent to fund President Bush’s expenditures. Unfortunately, those who borrowed your money don’t want to pay it back. You made a bad investment – but that’s how the free market works. Therefore, I am suspending payments on these Treasury notes until we can round up the deadbeats and make them live up to their commitments.

As president, I have the constitutional duty to pay the bills of the Veterans Administration, the Social Security fund, and other vital services already voted and appropriated by Congress. Military pay before banker pay. Get used to it.

Will the bankers have heart attacks? I hope so. (Maybe if bankers are ill, the GOP will vote for universal health care.) Will China refuse to buy more US debt? Not a chance: The Chinese cannot afford a devaluation of the $2 trillion to $3 trillion in US Treasury notes they have in their pokey, a devaluation which would surely follow their abandoning the US treasuries.

Note: Argentina defaulted and thrived. We can tango, too. But that’s all detail for me to argue out with other economists in some effete what-if seminar.

Ultimately, “default” is not the issue. “Default,” dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in that age-old battle between Them and Us. They spent the money and now they want Us to pay.

Default lies with the Republican spendthrifts, Mr. President. So, I suggest you issue an executive order creating a new wing at Guantanamo: a debtors’ prison for trillion-dollar deadbeats.

(Don’t you think Eric Cantor would look good in orange?)

[licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.]

“Ohio Congressman Bill Johnson said his Twitter account was hacked yesterday after an image of a naked man was posted on his page. When the Lord taketh a Weiner he giveth a Johnson.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Spain’s running of the bulls is not nearly as scary as the U.S. event, the running of Sarah Palin.” – Jimmy Fallon

“It’s Bastille Day, which is the day that Paul Revere rode through Paris warning the French.” – David Letterman

“Mitt Romney is so boring, he introduced his own fragrance called ‘Unscented.'” – David Letterman

“It’s rumored that Arnold Schwarzenegger is working on a memoir. Yeah, it’s apparently over 500 pages long — and that’s just the dedication to his kids.” – Jimmy Fallon

“In the last month, President Obama’s re-election campaign raised $86 million. But the bad news is, to get re-elected, he has to come up with $14 trillion more.” – Jay Leno

“The Treasury Department is shifting from paper to electronic savings bonds next year. But don’t worry — the electronic bonds will be just as worthless as the paper ones.” – Jimmy Fallon

“Starting next year, all U.S. savings bonds will be electronic rather than printed. So they’ll be paperless, as well as valueless, useless, and worthless.” – Jay Leno

‎”If Social Security checks don’t go out on August 3, it’s just old people. You know how they are. They’re just gonna blow that money on medicine and hips.” – Jon Stewart

“It looks like we’ll begin to pay our debt to China. Last week, we returned Yao Ming. And what about his brother Wyo Ming.” – David Letterman

“According to a survey by Charles Schwab, 16 percent of teenagers expect their parents to help them financially forever. I believe they’re called ‘philosophy majors.'” – Jay Leno

“New York has legalized gay marriage, and if you brought a gift for Paul and myself, just leave it in the lobby. Utah will never approve gay marriage, but they do allow a man to marry a woman with a slight mustache.” – David Letterman

“According to a new poll, U.S. popularity in the Middle East is at an all-time low. How could it be lower than before, when it was ‘Death to America?'” – Jay Leno

© Drew Sheneman

I’m really curious whether the Republicans will give in and raise the debt ceiling, or if they really will force the government to shut down.

© John Sherffius

Conservative David Brooks has an interesting column on the current state of the Republican Party that pits the “practical conservatives” against a host of groups that are more interested in the expression of political power than in actually governing. He divides this latter group into “The Beltway Bandits”, “The Big Government Blowhards”, “Show Horses” and “The Permanent Campaigners”.