Obama slams Republicans for threat to blow up entire economy

[Coito ergo sum]

If the Bush war was unnecessary so then yes.

Then why aren't Democrats calling for massive reductions in defense spending? Has it become necessary?

[piscator]

What's going to happen when a Democratic House demands that half the Pentagon's funding be cut in half in exchange for sending through the rest of the budget?

President Rand Paul would sign it into law, that's what would happen

Rand Paul is 5'2" or something. He doesn't have the genes to be an American President.

[Robert_S]

If the Bush war was unnecessary so then yes.

Then why aren't Democrats calling for massive reductions in defense spending? Has it become necessary?

Has it become feasible practically or politically? IIRC, there were some cutbacks under Clinton.

[laklak]

Eventually we'll scale back defense spending and return to a much more isolationist foreign policy. It's inevitable, particularly as the Boomers hit Social Security/Medicare age and the Entitlement Mentality take hold of everyone else. We can't afford to do both, the necessary level of spending and debt cannot be maintained forever. I predict at most a decade before damn near everybody else on the planet misses the Good Old U.S. of A. Whats that? Al HezQaedabollocks just blew up the whole of Kenya? Sorry mate, not our problem. Vlad has decided Russia really does need that warm water port? Hope it works out for you. Wanna buy a Coke?

[Robert_S]

Come on guys, if the Reps genuinely wanted to win the Presidency they would have been better off picking a horse rather than Romney or McCain. The Democrats didn't want to win either, that's why the picked a relatively unknown Black Guy. The last two elections have been essentially "who can we pick that will be so unpopular we don't have to fix the escalating mess." for both sides. Same here and by the looks of it everywhere else too.

The people who actually want to be the president that bad kinda narrows the field.

[Audley Strange]

Well would you? I mean no matter what you do the entire globe is going to bitch about you and about half your nation if not more. There is a tradition of leaving in disgrace and assassination attempts.

Other than that it seems to me that the system is being fucked by the same excesses that caused the system in the Soviet Union to collapse. It was also monolithic paranoid security state in the hands of oligarchs and religious lunatics in an slo-mo economic collapse during a war in Afghanistan.

[Robert_S]

Eventually we'll scale back defense spending and return to a much more isolationist foreign policy. It's inevitable, particularly as the Boomers hit Social Security/Medicare age and the Entitlement Mentality take hold of everyone else. We can't afford to do both, the necessary level of spending and debt cannot be maintained forever. I predict at most a decade before damn near everybody else on the planet misses the Good Old U.S. of A. Whats that? Al HezQaedabollocks just blew up the whole of Kenya? Sorry mate, not our problem. Vlad has decided Russia really does need that warm water port? Hope it works out for you. Wanna buy a Coke?

Yep. I can't wait 'till stupid wars that cost 4-6 trillion blow up politically like stupid clean energy decisions that cost $535 million.

Seriously, if you're trying to get us off that stupid oil and make a half a billion dollar mistake and the Republicans make so much hay like there aren't war profiteers that have ripped us off for orders fucking magnitude more AND cost us lives AND made lifelong enemies for us in the process.

Where were these Tea Party folks before the Iraq wars?

[Randydeluxe]

Where were these Tea Party folks before the Iraq wars?

At church every Sunday.

Gun shows every Saturday.

Generally speaking, hanging out wherever they felt safe hating brown people. So the Iraq war was safe, because mainly brown people would die.

It's sad to unhide certain people here and see them *still* bravely defending the bigots.

[Collector1337]

Where were these Tea Party folks before the Iraq wars?

At church every Sunday.

Gun shows every Saturday.

Generally speaking, hanging out wherever they felt safe hating brown people. So the Iraq war was safe, because mainly brown people would die.

It's sad to unhide certain people here and see them *still* bravely defending the bigots.

Nice gross generalization.

[Seth]

Come on guys, if the Reps genuinely wanted to win the Presidency they would have been better off picking a horse rather than Romney or McCain. The Democrats didn't want to win either, that's why the picked a relatively unknown Black Guy. The last two elections have been essentially "who can we pick that will be so unpopular we don't have to fix the escalating mess." for both sides. Same here and by the looks of it everywhere else too.

The people who actually want to be the president that bad kinda narrows the field.

I've always said that anyone willing to spend the kind of money it takes to get elected President is the very last person on earth I want in the White House.

We'd be better off with a Presidential Selective Service lottery every 4 years.

[Robert_S]

Where were these Tea Party folks before the Iraq wars?

At church every Sunday.

Gun shows every Saturday.

Generally speaking, hanging out wherever they felt safe hating brown people. So the Iraq war was safe, because mainly brown people would die.

It's sad to unhide certain people here and see them *still* bravely defending the bigots.

Nice gross generalization.

Lol, no, they were out protesting FOR the wars, calling anyone who didn't support this big government faith based initiative a coward and a traitor. They were burning their Dixie Chicks and Steve Earl albums.

Hate and fear is there, visible just under all the pseudo-patriotism.

[mistermack]

I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't the Republican Party who are being conned here. There might be people who are hoping to do major damage to the Republicans, hoping to split the party, and start their own Tea Party.
If the US defaults, it's pretty clear that it's the Republicans who will get most of the blame, whereas the tea party voters will always be there for the more extreme ones. So ironically, it will be the more reasonable republicans who will be hit.

Just guessing, but things like that do happen.

[Tero]

Republicans were led back to power in the House in 1995 by one of the most mischievous, incendiary party leaders ever, Newt Gingrich. He led the way to a government shutdown that year that was considered disastrous to Republicans.

But the Gingrich confrontation now seems far more rational than the Boehner shutdown. First off, back then Republicans also controlled the Senate and so had more leverage with the Democratic White House.

And Mr Gingrich's Republicans were pushing for a broad set of coherent conservative changes to the budget. There were realistic grounds for negotiation.

Mr Boehner's Republicans are pushing to repeal a sitting president's hallmark achievement a year after he was re-elected. There is no room for negotiation and no chance of success. It is purely a stunt, an act of guerrilla theatre.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24433182

[Coito ergo sum]

Eventually we'll scale back defense spending and return to a much more isolationist foreign policy. It's inevitable, particularly as the Boomers hit Social Security/Medicare age and the Entitlement Mentality take hold of everyone else. We can't afford to do both, the necessary level of spending and debt cannot be maintained forever. I predict at most a decade before damn near everybody else on the planet misses the Good Old U.S. of A. Whats that? Al HezQaedabollocks just blew up the whole of Kenya? Sorry mate, not our problem. Vlad has decided Russia really does need that warm water port? Hope it works out for you. Wanna buy a Coke?

Oh, no. If that happens, then the world will point their fingers at the US and say that we either "abandoned" them or failed to act when it was morally necessary.

[Coito ergo sum]

Sowell's take on the shutdown --- http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2013/oc ... e-federal/