Tom Toles for October 11, 2013

Don’t expect the real captains to go down with that ship!

No, the Rethug rats will be abandoning their ship of state as fast as they can. It’s the rest of us I am worried about.

Still better than the Repigs’ 26%.

The AP reports that Obama’s approval rating has dropped to only 36%That’s 31% better than Congress’ approval rating. Democrats in Congress are also getting bad polls, but not nearly as bad as the GOP.http://surveys.ap.org/data%5CGfK%5CAP-GfK%20October%202013%20Poll%20Topline%20Final_POLITICS.pdf

The Koch Brothers stated that they have no problem with raising the debt ceiling. -Not that the Republican Party is influenced by the Kochs or anything like that.-I guessing that in a totally unrelated development, Grover Norquist will announce he has no problem with raising the debt ceiling. -Not that Norquist is on the Kochs’ payroll or anything like that.

Serious question from a foreigner:What kind of Democrat President wouldn’t be hated passionately (and apparently irrationally) by Republicans?

Today’s Republican Party motto:“It’s My Way or Total Ruin For Everybody!”Ya gotta love the zealotry; it’s like they’re using the Taliban playbook.

I thought Obama was half African + half USA Caucasian?

The GOP leadership announced IN ADVANCE that they thought the ACA so horrible that they would shut down the government rather than fund it. Okay, but at least let them have the GUTS to admit it, and not pretend that someone else did it. When they say that they will fund this thing, but not that; or claim that the administration is to blame for closing this, but not closing that, … they remind me of terrorists who say to the father of a group of children being held: “I will release one and shoot one. You name which to let get go, and which to shoot. Then I will have your permission to shoot the one. If you don’t choose, then I release no one, and I will have to start killing at random, and YOU will be completely responsible for those who die, because I am giving you the opportunity now to save any one of them.” The shutdown is costing the country billions every day, ruining small businesses and private concerns in many places, inflicting harm on millions. And a default? Maybe it would not be that bad. It’s effects might be slow in coming. Maybe it would not cause a global panic. Maybe it would not send through the roof the interest rates we pay to service our debt, or send mortgage rates up just as the housing industry is starting to recover. But what kind of of self-righteous ideologue is willing to gamble with the possibility of catastrophe on a global scale just to cripple a reform, however flawed, that has already saved lives and given millions hope? They could not stop the ACA in Congress, or in the courts, and they could not defeat the president who ran for re-election on the ACA. Polls show that the majority of Americans by a considerable margin do not want the government shut down over the ACA, and the only body who has the constitutional power to declare something constitutional has declared the ACA to be so. Yet they go on. If it is a bad law, that will appear. If it is a bad law, if the GOP has what the American people want, then let them win elections and change or repeal it. Instead they sabotage the country and try to do by foul means what they cannot do by fair means, and then deny they are even doing it. If the ACA is so bad that it is worth shutting down the government in order to stop it, then they should be crowing about their accomplishment. The very fact that they are trying to pass the buck on this one, and cry crocodile tears over the WWII veterans, etc., only demonstrates that they KNOW they are in the wrong.

@GaryMcSpook: Stop the racist comments against Asians.

And Congress is at 8% (eight).

“I would say Clinton, who forced through repeal of AFDC and Glass–Steagall, and if they’d hated him for that, it would NOT have been irrational. But, of course, those are the two things he did that they really liked.”Clinton was the reason I left the Democratic Party. He marked the Dem’s shift rightward. Much like with Obama, the Republicans never really saw past his political affiliation in the mass of vitriol against him.

“liberals ruin this country”…“bankrupting it”…“Obummer’s watch”…“going to hell in a handbasket”…“already has gone to hell”…“ignore the laws when it comes to illegal immigration”…This is exactly the kind of endlessly regurgitated Fox-Limbaugh stupidity which is dragging the Republican party into extinction. If Republicans ever want to win elections again, they need to turn off the Fox-vomit, return to reality, and start offering the rest of us some plausible options and solutions.

“the dem’s totally ignore the laws when it comes to illegal immigration”

Not exactly true. Mr. Obama’s administration has deported more people than previous. They have realized that more than 11 million people are here illegally. We cannot move them all out at one time, logistically; besides, who would pick our vegetables and fruits for such low wages? Therefore if they all were to leave, our food prices would go way up very quickly.

So it’s been decided that if we can’t deport them all at once, we should prioritize, sending the least valuable members home, and allowing the contributors to stay, rather than arbitrarily doing otherwise. Seems pretty practical to me. What you want should have been done 30 years ago, when the problem was not nearly so great. (By the way, who was president 30 years ago?)The Senate passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill. The House has decided to “study” each aspect, pretending they will consider each one and vote each one. The head of the committee that has stalled any hope of passing any immigration bill is Bob Goodlatte. Do you want to guess his party affiliation?

Hah! Only three percent fewer than actually oppose Obamacare (39%) because it’s too “liberal.” The other 11% hate it because of the compromises with conservatives that make it too limited. 38% support it outright. http://bit.ly/1eTP8wH Enough BS that Americans hate affordable care.

The TV shows spend thousands of hours on the government shutdown and the debt ceiling. Even if a CR passed we go through this all again in 6 weeks.

Yeah !% ups like bringing jobs back to the US, getting the rich to pay their fair share (eliminate off shore tax havens), invest in the U.S. infrastructure, etc. That would be a disaster!

Yep.

Which is a snapshot of the moment and the disgust with the situation that wasn’t of his choosing.

Seems to me we should take hats off to them – the teabaggers, I mean. They have been shrieking for ‘smaller government’ for years, and have successfully reduced it by 800,000+ jobs!

I support smaller government! Now all they have to do is pass a bill to make it permanent!

Now that makes sense, their new policy is scorched Earth.

I’d say “well said,” but of course I’d be lying.But considering the source, I will say “as well said as one might expect of someone of your type.”It’s like when my dog starts pushing his food dish around with his nose when he wants to be fed.. It’s not brilliant communication, but it’s pretty good for a dog.

“Heck, the Europeans think we’re already Communist but our people are just too dumb to realize what happened to them.” How many Europeans have you talked to lately? My friends in Berlin laugh at the allegation that the Democrats are “socialists”. In Europe, they tell me, the Democrats would be considered a center-right party, and the Republicans a far-right party. Our best friend in Berlin grew up in East Germany before her family escaped to the west just before the wall came down. She says, “I know socialism, and you have nothing remotely socialist in the United States. You don’t even have a viable leftist party.” So I don’t know what planet you live on, Max. But you ought to visit this one some time.

“John Kennedy was loved by all.What country are you from?”.John Kennedy was loved by all? Perhaps posthumously, but certainly not during his administration. Though the GOP was somewhat more civil in those days, they in no way “loved” JFK, and he even faced severe criticism from the racist Southern Democrats (also known as “Dixiecrats,” most of whom later became Republicans) in his own party.Everyone who knows their American history knows that.What country are you from?

“The Republicans submitted a bill and the dems refused to accept it.”.Yes, because the bill was garbage. Submitting a bill that does not solve the problem doesn’t make the GOP the problem solvers. Their unwillingness to submit a reasonable bill makes them the problem.

I prefer to decline to say where I am from. I feel that it will prejudice the acceptance of my opinions. My country is a committed ally of the USA. Consider me as a representative from the Rest Of The World. I am not aligned with your party politics.I was born and live across the waters from the USA.I’m not German.My Parents were refugees from Eastern Europe.My Father spent four years in a Soviet POW camp.As per my family, I am passionately anti-communist, but not anti-socilaist, especially when it comes to providing basic care for my whole society.I do love the USA, have visited twice, love the people and appreciate what the USA has done for the world in so many ways. We’re all better off because of its existence.I think GWB did more damage to the USA in direct terms and reputation than possibly any other activity or period in your history.

I am waiting for the USA to wake up from a really restless night’s sleep.

So you can’t even quote yourself correctly; you didn’t say “most Americans loved JFK,” you said “John Kennedy was loved by all.”If you can’t even remember what you yourself said a few hours earlier, then don’t brag about your memories of American history.And how is it “obvious” that you were born in America?Because you think of yourself as so vastly superior, and only superior people are born in America?You are once, twice, three times a fool.

It has never struck me that Ottodesu was ashamed of his country; and though he has criticized America on occasion, I’ve never read anything of his that bashed it.And your comment “You should learn to live on your own earnings” makes you sound like the most witless of churls. Where do you have any proof that he is receiving, even indirectly, money from the US?I up the ante, you are four times a fool, and counting.

“The guy who kidnapped the 3 girls voted for Obama.”And your proof of that is?Five times a fool. Care to go for six?