comment: >
  
  This is the way.  Tell the Republicans that you will vote for a clean debt ceiling increase.  If they want to add a bunch of stuff to it, they can do it without Democratic votes.
context: i still remember when republicans had full control of Congress under trump and had the biggest shutdown of all time. it showed that they can't even negotiate amongst themselves (which we continue to see), and they're willing to let the whole thing crash and burn.
  the wildest part was their base genuinely blamed democrats for the whole thing. >
  
  
  they're willing to let the whole thing crash and burn.
  
  that's the problem, they are willing, and they get praised by right wing media for doing so. >
  
  I truly don’t know if they’re willing to burn it all down, or if they’re just irrationally short sighted and wildly overestimating their own hard bargaining skills. I mean, it’s always and only about stock prices and reducing tax liability for them, a market crash is terrible for their owners. It’s maybe more like a 14 year old with a gun and why wouldn’t he rob a gas station?  It’s his parents that’ll be in trouble anyway for not locking up the gun. What could go wrong? >
  
  
  a market crash is terrible for their owners.
  
  Not when their wealth is far beyond magnitudes of "mattering anymore," and that's what we are risking with today's gilded age billionaires, they are playing with Monopoly money. >
  
  Or maybe they’re certain that they can absolutely loot the rubble once the economy implodes. As they always do when catastrophe comes around. >
  
  Except for that one time with gamestop. That was entertaining to watch. Can it happen again please? >
  
  That was Sen Brian Schatz, Hawai‘i's senior US Senator. >
  
  thank you for including the ‘okina! >
  
  I am also a fan of proper spelling and grammar. 
  I did not know, however, that it was called an ‘okina. Thanks for giving me today’s factoid! >
  
  since ur interested in grammar, another little factoid: it is considered a letter in the Hawaiian language, as it represents a glottal stop
  so it’s Ha - wai - ee (and the w is pronounced like a v so it’s : ha- Vai - ee) 
  note that it isn’t used in the word “Hawaiian” though >
  
  Any particular reason Hawaiian isn't "Hawai‘ian"? Or just cuz? >
  
  It’s considered an English word so it doesn’t have the 'okina as it’s in English spelling, not Hawaiian. >
  
  Ah makes sense, not like another language would necessarily just add "-an" as a suffix too; that makes it English
  It'd be like saying "España-ish" for Spanish (nationality) haha >
  
  yes that! Native Hawaiians call themselves kānaka or kānaka maoli or kānaka 'ōiwi or Hawai'i maoli
  edit: also to add, ‘Hawaiian language’ is 'Ōlelo Hawai'i in Hawaiian
  a correction below points out that Kānaka is the plural form, it’s kanaka for singular as well >
  
  This thread would make for a way better table than Republicans and Democrats sitting at one regarding the debt ceiling.
  Edit: /tableflip
  `(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ >
  
  all public schools in hawaii have mandatory hawaiian studies classes in k-12. they cover ancient hawaiian culture, family structure, laws, sports, traditions, customs, societal structure/roles, food, language, history, naval exploration.
  the university of hawaii also has hawaiian studies as a basic requirement for most degrees.
  it's an extremely rich, amazing culture. >
  
  Republicans want to hold the American economy hostage so they can demand a ransom. This kind of ultimatum does not have the best interests of most Americans in mind, unfortunately, most Republican voters won't see it that way. >
  
  Trump did this with the government shutdown remember? Working Americans went weeks without a paycheck because trump was holding the government hostage to argue with the dems >
  
  Dear god, I actually forgot. They controlled everything but chose to shut it down because the TV was being mean to trump about his wall. (And, of course, blamed the left.) >
  
  Worse part was dems offered a 25bil compromise for his borderwall vanity project and trump then started the longest shutdown in us history. To in the end only getting 5, what a loser >
  
  Yep, I just re-read the entire thing. How half his base didn't immediately go, "oh, this guy is stupid" I'll never understand.
  Fuckin' Art of the Deal, baby! >
  
  They are equally stupid, that's how. >
  
  Equally stupid, all with dreams of being as rich and openly bigoted as someone like Trump. >
  
  My coworker's family are largely in their 60s, disability, haven't worked in decades. They constantly talk about "when I get rich this, when I'm a millionaire that". Like, wtf do you think you are doing that will cause this wealth to materialize? I'm out here trying to put out hit music (jury is out), get a law degree, snag a sugar momma etc etc. WTF do they do? They play the lotto...okay, I'll admit, they probably got the same chances as I do, but at least even without the wealth I'll have something to show for it. 
  Oh yeah, forgot to mention those folk's' favorite politician. They weren't the "own the libs" type, nor the "hands of my taxes" type. Instead, what they liked about Trump was that he was a smart businessman. The smartest businessman in the entire world, by their estimation. These folk are fucking idiots. 
  And that's just one group of idiots under the idiotic umbrella of Trump supporters. There are so many more. I won't pretend like their ain't idiots in my camp, but Trump's camp seems to be exclusively idiotic. >
  
  
  but Trump's camp seems to be exclusively idiotic.
  
  I mean, he's a large-scale grifter, and a pretty obvious one at that, and it's hardly ever smart people that are targeted by, or fall for, such hucksters. It should hardly come as a surprise that his base is, to say the least, gullible in the extreme. >
  
  Good. Now they need to really start the messaging surrounding the Two Santas Strategy and how these threats from the GOP are part of the playbook they’ve been using to manipulate voters for decades.
  “The only thing wrong with the U.S. economy is the failure of the Republican Party to play Santa Claus.” – Jude Wanniski, March 6, 1976
  “The stock market is falling, in part a reaction to GOP threats to shut down the government: it’s all part of their plan.
  Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen last week warned us that the GOP is about to use Jude Wanniski’s “Two Santa Clauses” fraud again to damage Biden’s economy and our standing in the world. And, sure enough, Mitch McConnell verified it when he said last week there would be “zero” Republican votes to raise the debt ceiling.
  Yellen responded yesterday by telling The Wall Street Journal that if the Republicans force a shutdown of the U.S. government like they did to Obama in 2011, “We would emerge from this crisis a permanently weaker nation.” But the GOP is adamant: they have their strategy and they’re sticking to it.
  Here’s how it works, laid it out in simple summary:
  First, the Two Santas strategy dictates, when Republicans control the White House they must spend money like a drunken Santa and cut taxes to run up the U.S. debt as far and as fast as possible.
  This produces three results: it stimulates the economy thus making people think that the GOP can produce a good economy; it raises the debt dramatically; and it makes people think that Republicans are the “tax-cut Santa Clauses.”
  Second, when a Democrat is in the White House, Republicans must scream about the national debt as loudly and frantically as possible, freaking out about how “our children will have to pay for it!” and “we have to cut spending to solve the crisis!” Shut down the government, crash the stock market, and damage US credibility around the world if necessary to stop Democrats from spending money.
  This will force the Democrats in power to cut their own social safety net programs and even Social Security, thus shooting their welfare-of-the-American-people Santa Claus right in the face.
  And, sure enough, here we are now with a Democrat in the White House. Following their Two Santas strategy, Republicans are again squealing about the national debt and refusing to raise the debt ceiling, imperiling Biden’s economic recovery as well as his Build Back Better plans.
  And, once again, the media is covering it as a “Biden Crisis!” rather than what it really is: a cynical political and media strategy devised by Republicans in the 1970s, fine-tuned in the 1980s and 1990s, and rolled out every time a Democrat is in the White House.”
  This was written in 2021, but it could’ve been written now. Or at any point since the 70s dems have taken over. It happens every time. >
  
  This should be its own TIL because I'm sure many of us never heard of this Strategy, but the concept of a group taking actions to impede another group then blame them with media support is one I always suspected was the norm in two party politics. >
  
  it would be great if the democratic party could get their fucking act together on messaging.  like biden going to places that got infrastructure money, and having all party members and all senators tweeting the same things.  
  i saw local news today, and they're making a bigger deal out of biden's classified documents issue than they did out of trumps.  get it together.  there is no such thing as going high anymore, politics is  mud wrestling and democrats are trying to win without getting dirty. >
  
  They are portraying Biden as a senile old man who had classified documents floating around his home like that plastic bag in American Beauty. Meanwhile they gloss over the fact that Trump refused to return the documents after the DOJ and the FBI asked him too. >
  
  Biden had classified documents in his home. Trump had stolen Secret Compartmented Information documents in his pool shed at the resort he owns and frequently allows foreign dignitaries to visit. These are not the same things >
  
  ...and informed law enforcement and voluntarily handed the documents back the instant they were discovered, while the other had to have them seized by force... >
  
  Exactly. These are two totally different scenarios. The documents Trump had weren’t even supposed to leave a specific bunker. They were literally the most classified a classified document can get >
  
  In exchange for not crashing the United States economy, you get nothing,” Schatz said in an interview with The Daily Beast. “You don’t get a cookie. ... You’re just a person doing the bare minimum of not intentionally screwing over your constituents for insane reasons.”
  Asked about GOP calls that Democrats join Republicans at the negotiating table, the Hawaiian senator added, “We have to tell them there is no table.edit. No fucking tables >
  
  
  We can't afford a table
  Repubs pass a debt bill to be able to afford tables
  4d checkmate >
  
  Stock market drops 20%, GOP gets an earful from their billionaire overlords, and debt ceiling issue resolved. 
  Let it play out. >
  
  I think you underestimate what default on our debt means, it's massively worse on a number of levels than a stock market crash >
  
  Which is why it won’t happen. Push comes to shove, the President says “Lmao fuck you, I’m paying the bills anyway.”
  We will not default. I guarantee it. >
  
  cash currency isnt the kind of mone they need... they need to sell bonds, and if the credit worthiness of the US is in question then that whole equation gets fucked. kind of how the yield curves for the 10/2, and 10/3m are currently inverted. shits fucked and the GOP is about to step into it because these children dont understand the difference between household debt and national debt.. fuck, if only we had a better education system, ppl would take this shit seriously. >
  
  What would this do to the value of the Dollar? >
  
  In the modern financial system, treasuries are just cash that pays interest. Minting a $1 trillion dollars of new currency is functionally equivalent to issuing $1 trillion of new debt. >
  
  I understand that. But that effects the valuation of those treasury notes. >
  
  The debt ceiling is not new spending its financial obligations that both parties in the past have already passed and signed off on. If they waned to cut spending they should have not voted for past legislation in the first place.Not raising the debt ceiling is like refusing to pay youre mortgage. >
  
  Which is such a strange issue, considering the 14th amendment states:
  
  The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law[...] shall not be questioned. >
  
  Yet I had a dipshit try to tell me yesterday that the debt is still valid even if you default on it. It's like people don't know a single damned thing about how money, debt, and credit work
  The "called into question" bit is muy importante >
  
  Seems like this makes the law about the debt ceiling pretty obviously unconstitutional. And with the recent court rulings about student loan forgiveness it should be ridiculously easy now to establish standing. >
  
  Pack the court. Represent the people! >
  
  They...did that with Citizens United. 'The People' (aka corporations) with the most money are now making our decisions for us with their voting dollars. Since, you know, reasons. >
  
  Because by reverse rationalizing, we've made it so that corporations are people, and money is speech!
  It's a pretty clever trick - like we can undermine anything if we just change the meanings of words. I know language evolves, but this way just seems like legalistic sabotage. >
  
  Yea, honestly it’s extremely dubious. If I give money to terrorists, is it speech? If I give money to a judge, is it speech?
  No. It’s material support and it’s either treason or an illegal bribe. It’s only speech when corps pay congress members. A tidy little arrangement. >
  
  Actually a good point... What separates donating money to say the Taliban vs the GOP or one of their pet SCROTUS judges? Technically all you're doing is voicing your monetary support, and ideologically the two are becoming identical. >
  
  And like, similar or not, isn’t it all just protected speech? Money = speech. Corps = people. That is the foundation of the judgement.
  It’s just very nakedly bad reasoning. >
  
  Somehow the media will spin this as Democrats' fault when shit inevitably hits the fan. >
  
  My parents' go to whenever the repubs do something like this is always "they're protesting whatever the Democrats are spending the money on" or, if it's a bill, "they're voting against all the pork in the bill" >
  
  It's funny when you ask them for specifics on any topic. For example, ask them "what is the pork in the bill?" The ensuing stammering makes me literally laugh in their face every time. >
  
  Which, for my parents, is always "I don't know, I didn't read it, but I'm sure there's something" which is a fruitless argument >
  
  Y'know, when you have 435 Representatives, 100 Senators, one President of the Senate and one President of the United States, there will always be provisions any individual does not like.  It is the nature of governing large populations: compromise >
  
  For example, the bill that gave biden a button to control the prices of eggs and gas. >
  
  I heard Biden personally culled millions of sick chickens. >
  
  Nah, that one was on me. 
  TBF, Antifa hired me to do it. >
  
  Did you use the Jewish space laser, and did you control it with the Bill Gates 5G chip inserted with the COVID vaccine? >
  
  I see news about this exact thing happening about every year or two. Has the US ever considered adopting a method of running its accounts that isn't completely disfunctional? >
  
  Plenty have considered it. The idea of just getting rid of the debt ceiling is legal and doable. The only issue is, voters don't elect enough normie establishment Democrats in order to enable that - instead the Dems needed to rely on support from hardcore antiestablishment moderates like Manchin and Sinema, so eliminating the debt ceiling (or increasing it so much to the point where it wouldn't be an issue anymore, which is basically the same thing) just wasn't an option
  Hopefully in the future, voters will eventually make better choices there >
  
  There is an alternative, and I think Biden might be up for it. The Fourteenth Amendment, in section 4 says: 
  
  The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. 
  
  Congress already appropriated the money that was spent and that will be spent. If meanwhile we hit the debt ceiling, well, so what? The Constitution prohibits defaulting on our debt. Biden could ignore the debt ceiling and just keep right on going. The R’s would howl bloody murder and run to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court would probably order Biden to stop spending. So what? How would they enforce that? How would they pay for enforcement? >
  
  We don’t negotiate with terrorists >
  
  You get nothing! You lose! Good day sir! >
  
  I scrolled waaaay too far down to find this. >
  
  Good.  The GOP has become accustomed to bullying people.  Someone needs to say "enough". >
  
  
  What Republicans are doing is manufacturing a hostage crisis, effectively telling Democrats that the GOP is prepared to harm Americans on purpose unless their demands are met. For all intents and purposes, it is a Republican extortion scheme.
  If the new House majority wants to try to pass a bill through the American legislative process, pursuing cuts to public investments, it’s welcome to try to do so. But declaring that they’ll crash the economy deliberately unless Democrats meet their demands is an indefensible tactic that cannot be tolerated.
  
  Damn right. >
  
  Good.  We do not negotiate with terrorists. >
  
  I don’t think mass bot-spamming the exact same thing will be an effective way to get eyes on it. It will (rightfully) be auto-filtered to spam and could be written off as just a couple people hiring a bot farm. >
  
  AI to the rescue. >
  
  So Trump and gang do huge tax breaks for the rich  
  So this leads to bigger deficit and therefore rising national debt. 
  NOW, the GQP wants to cut all of the ‘poor people programs’ because there is now too much debt. !??!?? >
  
  Pretty much. As soon as they took the house I knew they were going to manufacture another debt ceiling crisis. Oh look republicans are back in control of the house with a dem president, guess it’s time to shut down the government and fuck over a bunch of people for months on end. Convenient that it wasn’t an issue when it was their guy in office. >
  
  That is the correct response. >
  
  Ideally dems would say, "Tell ya what we will work with you to reduce the deficit by getting rid of the 2017 tax cuts.  Since you are worried about financial responsibility". >
  
  Republicans subscribe to magical economics where tax cuts shrink the deficit. >
  
  Is it that time of year already?
  And why was this never a thing when Trump happily added trillions to the US debt? >
  
  So what do I get for not blowing up the bank?
  nothing.  Not blowing up the bank is the standard.
  But I could blow up the bank.
  I suppose, but why would you blow up the bank?
  Because I can get something out of not blowing it up.
  That makes no sense.
  It's how I feel.  It doesn't have to make sense.  I want to get something out of not blowing up the bank.
  That's called extortion.
  No, no.  Extortion is if I threaten you.  I'm not threatening anything.  I just want a reward for not blowing up the bank.
  How about the feeling you get when you don't do horrible things?
  You're not getting this. >
  
  If they take a government credit system hostage, does that mean the House is a domestic terrorist cell? >
  
  Yes, except we aren’t allowed to call them terrorists because they are white Baptists. >
  
  TerrorWASPS were a thing during the Pandemic...weren't they? >
  
  I don't know what changed but I'm glad the Dems are finally pushing back properly. >
  
  Good. The debt ceiling threat is a gun that Dems know the GOP can't actually use. >
  
  I think the crazy bastards are actually going to do it this time.  The GQP has gone collectively insane and they're dragging the rest of us down with them. >
  
  Agreed, there's no bridge they won't burn. They'll light themselves on fire to try to "own the libs". >
  
  Stay strong Dems.  Don’t give in to terrorists. >
  
  Good. Don’t normalize it. 
  Treat them like the children they are. >
  
  Republicans are a bunch of fucking terrorists who are going to hold the entire nation hostage in order to pass their incredibly unpopular and incredibly insane policies.  I fucking hate them so much.  Republicans are our enemies. >
  
  This is about paying for what has already been spent. Why do republicans keep acting like it is new spending when they know darn well it is not?! >
  
  Um, I’m going to go with “Disingenuous assholes do stuff for 1000, please” >
  
  How come Republicans Representative seem to hate the US so much. >
  
  Because they work for the Fucking Russians. >
  
  Don't negotiate with terrorists >
  
  So Republican's are threatning to not do their jobs and to screw over the American people again unless the Democrat's give them more power.  Seems about right. >
  
  republicans always lose the debt ceiling fight.  they money was appropriated by congress.  don’t like it?  fight against the spending, not the debt incurred by the spending >
  
  Yes.  Do this more and often.  Broadcast to the world that it's the GOP crashing everything and pound it into people's heads until they think they never thought otherwise. >
  
  If a hostage taker gets a reward, all he will do is take more hostages. >
  
  In some cases, "we don't negotiate with terrorists" needs to be true. >
  
  This will be treated exactly the same way as the McCarthy speaker vote. The Dems will vote sensibly, all of the republicans will be obstructionists and try to grandstand all day long then blame the Democrats for not negotiating with them despite the fact that they hold a majority. 
  And eventually after the dust settles Donald Trump will declare victory was delivered from his enormous brain. MTG and Boo-boo will Roshambo to decide who’s the heel and who’s the face for this round. Gaetz’s head will get even larger and stupider looking. Gym will fit 300 words into the space where 50 would comfortably fit while saying nothing whatsoever in relation to what the hell is going on. >
  
  Weird how there wasn’t a single discussion about debt during the four years of Trump, but once a Democrat is elected it is suddenly an issue.  Strange.
  Republicans only care about debt when there’s a Democrat in the White House >
  
  Actually there was a fight among Republicans over that during Trump's turn. >
  
  Good. Don’t negotiate with terrorists. >
  
  
  "no you don't get a cookie"
  
  Can we make that a meme? If the right has Let's Go Brandon or "Lock her up" Can we please make a meme out of "No you don't get a cookie".