I didn't believe the government would be shut down.

Yes, in presidential elections, the American public votes against extremists. In their own district, the constituency they represent, they can do no wrong, but locally is not nationally. Gotcha!



As a senator he has six years and he was just elected a few months ago. You are correct, he is just the morally depraved type that exhilarates the Tea Party, which means Cruz will be around a long time as a thorn in the side of the Dems and even some Republicans who has no love lost for one of their own. And yes, it's a very strong possibility this ruthless politician will get caught up in some criminal activity (it's not beyond many politicians to get involved in crooked schemes), a bribe or shady deal....one lives in hope! I've read of the McCarthy era.....many Dems refer to Cruz as a McCarthyite clone.



Yes, especially among some voters who reside in quite a number of southern states. Yet, the younger generation of southerners appear different from their elders.....conceivably, because they're able to accept changes in our general population more readily. The world they're born into is filled with Latinos, and there are same sex marriages welcomed in many states and growing. The world around us is a quite a diversified one.....

Teabagger logic. No further comment.

For starters, there were no WWII vets threatened with arrest. The vets removed the orange plastic cones surrounding the out door memorial. All public parks and attractions are closed because Ted Cruz thinks his party can remove a sitting President.

And as far as the Pentagon goes, they plan for action to take if we're are invaded, and a ton of Pentagon employees are civilian. To be clear, there are not enough military personnel to replace every civilian support position, not to mention continue to carry out the military operations.

You can call it mean spirited to furlough those who run the parks and our monuments if you like. I hate to see that happen, but is it more or less mean spirited to shut down meals on wheels, or WIC programs? If you shut down the govt, the govt is shut down. You can all thank John Boehner for his inability to stand up to the radically irresponsible tiny fraction of his party.

Robert Reich
Public Figure ·
An old friend, who has been active in politics for more than thirty years, told me yesterday that he was giving up. "I can't stomach what's going on in Washington any more," he said. "The hell with all of them. I have better things to do with my life." My friend is falling exactly into the trap that the extreme right wants all of us to fall into -- such disgust and cynicism that we all give up on politics. Then they're free to take over everything.

Make no mistake: Ted Cruz and his Tea Party followers, and the Koch brothers and their other financial patrons, are relishing this shutdown. They're delighted that 95% of the Environmental Protection Agency is down, so polluters can do whatever they want; that 80% of the Labor Department is down, so unscrupulous employers can trample on their employees; that much of the Securities and Exchange Commission is down, so corporations can have a field day. And they'd like nothing more than a default on the nation's debt in two weeks, because the resulting financial chaos will cause even more of us to become angry and cynical. That's the point: They feed off of anger and cynicism.

Our response should be the opposite: We will not give in to bullies or intimidation, and nor will we give in to cynicism about what our government needs to be and who it needs to serve. We will remain engaged and active, and push every member of Congress as well as the President to remain steadfast.

Maybe we can talk about it in another thread sometime. I lived in La Jolla for a while when I went through a lab internship; had a boyfriend there years later; cousins live up the way in Solana Beach. Anyway, I like it too.

Ok, back to snarling about politics.

No one thought the GOP would put a gun to their head and then pull the trigger. But it appears that was their intention. It's the sheriff's fault for not recognizing that.

Are you saying I need to bring my posts down to a 2nd grade level for you to understand them?

Sarcasm is always wasted on the feeble minded it seems.

Texas may turn blue sooner than you think edgar. We can all hope for change you know.

If you lived here you would revise those words.

It's always reddest before the blue.

This Cruz fella is a puppet, right? I just finished reading all kinds of stuff he's said, publicly, into a microphone. He's nuts. Seriously. End of time stuff? Religion spouted in political speeches/filibuster? WTF in a government building and nobody batted an eye. And none of it was true, relevant, factual... 21 hours and this fool continued to remove all doubt. His point and even his religious assertions were incorrect, for hours on end and not one person thought about the separation of church and state. And it's a pretty weird church at that...
Days later the tea party holds the country at bay while millions attempt to get health care coverage. Closures, furloughs, unpaid millions, graveyard closures, border backlogs...
You all live in a weird, weird place.

I have no defense for the majority of our voters.

"Congress no longer declares war or makes budgets. So that's the end of the constitution as a working machine."
-- Gore Vidal

Frightening, but nearer to the truth than anything else that's been spouted on A2K for years.

Apathy is going to win out though. Just how they want it to.

Jual Linz of Yale just died, he made the case that our Constition does not work and that America is doomed to get much worse. Slate has a good piece on this by ygleslias

dont read if you need to believe that idiot R's are the problem, he argues that system is the problem, that people are just being people

Republican assholes.

I am working on Republicans right now. My complaints about the Dems and the government in general have been voiced on a2k before.

That exchange has gone viral, as they say. I see it everywhere I look on the internet.

great, but complaining about individuals might be one giant irrelavant diversion from the problem. to solve a problem one must first understand it. dont expect that there is much to gain from the shallow groupthink of A2k.