This is off topic but where can I find plans on building several guillotines? You know, just to have around the house and stuff. Maybe we can have a guillotine building party at our next Slog Happy?

Is Canada still a viable option? It's so close.

Mmmmmm.... seitan sandwich. Hold the sugar, please.

No, it's not the death of the American republic. It's just the usual bullshit. Maybe you should pop a xanax and relax.

Wow what an overstatement. It all depends on your perspective. The Tea Party could as easily be seen as a small popular movement that arose through political activism in the face of mass ridicule that despite our stultifying two-party system and entrenched interests managed to leave its mark in the political landscape in a relatively short time by refusing to compromise its ideology. Other movements in other areas of the spectrum would do well to take note. The system works.

Yeah, but I see that Michele Bachmann has cancelled her campaign stops in Iowa so she can return to Washington to vote against this. Apparently, it's not nutso enough for her.

C'mon, it's not all bad, right? Think of Kucinich: he's been shopping for a left-leaning district he can get angry enough to take a chance on him. His geographic options just expanded terrifically. This deal might as well be subtitled the "Jobs for Dennis Kucinich (Only) Act".

6- yeah, I saw that. Total wow. Nuttier than a nut.

Normally don't agree with much of what Charles says (when I can understand it), but he's got a hell of a point here. For the first time we're looking at a really small minority of voters and politicians controlling what the bulk of people can do. Most of the Republican Party is sane, even if you disagree with everything they believe. The Teabaggers are certifiably insane, and the Repubs are backing away slowly, not making eye contact, like they're dealing with a rabid dog. Teabaggers continue to win by virtue of their insanity, and every time they do it's encouragement to do it again. This is a very bizarre, almost schizophrenic moment in our history.

woa holy smokes. romney says it doesn't do enough either and that he won't support it. looks like all the candidates are a bowl of mixed nuts.

@9: Charles?

hello stagnation!

@11: I can appreciate what they've accomplished in an emotionless sense, but it's still repugnant. And the idea of holding a society hostage and refusing to work with the rest of our countrymen is not one any rational person should imitate. Left or right it doesn't matter; we're all here, we're all stuck together, and we're going to crash & burn if all we do is fight.

@ 11,

Assuming they have conventional goals, like working towards the overall prosperity and well-being of most people, then they are not only insane but also sadistic, incoherent and illogical and have a fundamental misunderstanding of economics.

If their real goal is to cause a depression and wipe out what's left of the middle class and the poor, then yes, they're very effective.

the american republic has been dead for quite a while now. maybe this will make some people realize it.

Catastrophic spending cuts worked great for Herbert Hoover.

@14, @16

You are missing the point. The time for arguing, posturing and name-calling has passed; the deed is done. Anyway, you're mostly preaching to the choir here.

The Tea Party sowed the seeds that bore this fruit several years ago through old-fashioned political agitation, organization and electioneering. Ideology aside, the achievement is remarkable given the forces stacked against them. Unless we're willing to do the same thing, this is what we get.

I often think we're more interested in assuring ourselves of our moral superiority than in politics. I no longer want to hear about how terrible they are, or how much wiser and benign we are. I want to hear about candidates, platforms and organizations. Those are the tools we use. Save the posturing for the bathroom mirror.

@ 20,

I'd love to see an economic rebound caused by a massive increase in guilliotine production.

Romney's come out against the nutso debt deal not because it's not nutso enough (unlike nutso Bachmann). He is positioning himself as the frontrunner for the 2012 Republican nomination; therefore he not only doesn't want to get behind a deal that is going to turn out to obviously be a shit sandwich for the vast majority of the country, he doesn't want to get behind a deal supported by Obama, his (he hopes) opponent. And in this case, in contrast to his flip-floppy positions on healthcare, teh gays and other issues, he's figured he doesn't want to have to answer for any support of this deal backed by the White House. Just standard politics. I'm guessing some of these "mainstream" Republican guys like Romney are geniunely bewildered that a Democratic president and a Senate still nominally controlled by Democrats were able to be steamrolled by the teabaggiest wingnuts of their party in Congress, and thinking this drowing of government in the bathtub actually has gone further than their wildest conservative wet dreams. Just think, Grover Norquist (he of the "drag government into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub" phrase) supports this deal! He's probably jacking off onto his copy of the constitution right now, or maybe he's gathered a circle jerk around Milton Friedman's grave.

@19: Let's restore tax rates on the upper brackets to the way they were fifteen or twenty years ago. That'll solve about HALF that problem right there.

The Tea Party sowed the seeds that bore this fruit several years ago through old-fashioned political agitation, organization and electioneering

The Tea Party started in early 2009. It has not been several years.

@24 In fact, it started on April 15, 2009, as a "tax protest". Important to note that nothing about the American tax burden had changed since 2008. The only change was that now taxes were being sent to a government headed by a black man. That was all the "old-fashioned political agitation" necessary.

@20: The Tea Party is not an example of an effective grass-roots political movement. It is an example of an effective astroturfed campaign disguised as a populist movement. Any rally that hasn't been funded by the Kochs and promoted by Fox and Clear Channel has had three attendees, all sixty year old white Alabamans wearing propeller hats.

The only political lesson to be learned from them is that if your political cause aligns perfectly with the goals of certain billionaires sometimes you can get one of their think-tanks to kick down the money to print up some posters.

@26: So weird to hear right-wingers claim that payments for Social Security and Medicare are not taxes. If not taxes, what?

Goldy, you are even more of an overwrought hysteric than Andrew Sullivan. The people of this nation defeated Hitler. The time that we lived with a gun permanently pointed at our head was when the Soviet Union had thousands of ICBMs trained on us. We're not fucked--or dead--just because some overgrown entitlement programs are going to be trimmed 10 years from now.

If I were your grandmother, I'd slap your face and tell you to man up.

@21, I like it: The Guillotine Party. Platform planks:

1 - Progressive taxation is good; regressive taxation is bad
2 - Social welfare is good; corporate welfare is bad
3 - A strong middle class is the hallmark of any stable economy, and a strong middle class has only ever been sustained through government-imposed market inefficiencies.
4 - Equitable wealth redistribution is the good and proper role of any worthwhile government.
5 - "Tax and spend" is the definition of what a good government does.

I'd drop the Democrats in a heartbeat to be a PCO for the Guillotines.

hey, conservative troll at 19 & 26, using "you girls" as an insult instantly identifies you as a moron and a douchebag.

You rabidly attack the GOP when the extreme lack of leadership is coming from the White House...

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a
sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay
its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial
assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless
fiscal policies. Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and
internationally. Leadership means that the buck stops here. Instead,
Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our
children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of
leadership. Americans deserve better." - Senator Barack H. Obama, March 2006

Quoted in National Review Online as well as Huffington Post

________________________________________

I just love how anyone can spout out words and promises purporting to take responsibility once elected, then completely forget your campaign platform and sit around blaming others... Bet you forgot how he promised transparency in government too... The only people who have provided some transparency are WikiLeaks' Julian and Bradley Manning.

How we love our little entitlements we think we deserve for having been born, and how the pap flowed from the great tits of governments largess... Guess what, you aren't owed jack shit. People are born (hopefully) to responsible parents, they grow up, and they either make a success out of their life or they don't, then they die, period. You aren't owed a damn thing in life. Success is a choice as well as failure. If you can't be responsible for your own life, stop crying to mommy government. Hard luck? Go to Salvation Army. You aren't owed a dime. It's time this piteous generation grew up and started taking responsibility for yourselves. No one wants to wipe your sorry asses all your years...

It's also high time this President showed the leadership he was elected to show and make the draconian cuts in the budget. End welfare, social security, food stamps, etc. The money was spent long ago, so get over it already. Cut the Pentagon's budget by 50% and pull the military out of the over 200 countries they are baby-sitting. End the Department of Education, private schools educate far better than a public school ever dreamed of, and for less money! The public school system = government day-prisons for children with the class dumbed down to the lowest common denominator so no child (or blubbering idiot) is left behind. Stop funding Obama Care. Slash the income tax to 15% on everyone, especially the top 1%, that will bring about substantial recovery in the job market as well as raise revenues for the government. Jobs will return to the U.S. as it will become a favorable place to do business, and the revenues will flow to Washington D.C. as well. Raise taxes and Microsoft, the aero industry, and others will vacate this country entirely, leaving thousands without jobs. They are responsible to their shareholders. Why do busingess in a country that charges 35% tax and keeps wanting to raise it when you can do business out of Ireland and pay only 12%, or Switzerland and pay only 15% tax? It is simple economics…

The former junior Senator turned President has no idea what he's doing, how to lead, and should be impeached for his manifold lies... It's high time to hold our public officials accountable for the reasons we elected them. With this President all we got was Bush III. It appears you cry babies forget the recent history of the Presidents campaign promises (oh, that's right, you probably went to Public Schools so you didn't learn history or accountability). Pity...

The basic problem is the deficit, not the debit limit, and now we had a potential bill that makes some cuts yet only saves 1.2 trillion over ten years. Sheer idiocy! The entire House and Congress should be thrown out!

It looks like we'll just have to beat them the old fashioned way: by organizing a movement, taking over the Democratic Party, and dis-electing the fuckers.

@35 hey there's an idea...

Moral superiority in politics counts for nothing. All I care about is effectiveness, and the Tea Party has shown itself to be effective. A handful of Tea Party representatives will have more of a role in shaping this country's economic policy than the president and senate combined. Either learn those lessons or continue to stew in your own impotence.

Politics is a big game, and all this impotent rage -- guillotines, nazis, fleeing the country and other hyperbolic flatus -- serves only to excuse yourselves from playing. Cowards.

@36, yes, we should take all our impotent rage and channel it into impotent priggishness. I'll get right on it.

@36: You're right. We should learn from the Tea Party and get the Koch brothers to bankroll our political movement. That will totally work.

Satan sandwich? Why not just call it a shit sandwich?