Barney as Harry Mudd and Patty and Selma as Stella equals brilliant casting! Send link, I am lazy.

Thank you for your response.

And yes, the figure of 81 members in all three factions does take significant overlap into account: there are 7 members in all three caucuses and 20 who are members in two of the three. :)

Heh.

I am as much a "ryan" supporter as I am an "obama" supporter...

"If you can't be an athlete, be an athletic supporter!"
-Eve Arden, GREASE

:D

BWAH HAH HAH! Thanks for the laugh, pal. Too bad the entirety of America disagrees with you, isn't it?

The entirety of America DOESN'T disagree with me..

The entirety of the Left Wingery disagrees with me.

Which proves my point.. :D

Don't look now, but John Boehner's about to cut a deal with Obama. Should put the budget past the 2016 election. So who caved? We could have had a whole bunch of shutdowns instead....

As usual, Republicans caved because Democrats won't compromise..

Which is EXACTLY what I said would happen..

Yeah, things don't look especially good for Jeb! right now, do they?

Pretty much what I expected.. Jeb is not George..

Bernie Sanders is the only Dem to refuse all PAC money. So what's your reaction to that?

Actually, that is not entirely accurate..

Sanders and Trump are the only two candidates who don't have AFFILIATED Super PACs..

But each of them DO have UNAFFILIATED Super PACs...

Trump just cut his unaffiliated Super PACs loose...

When Sanders follows suit, I'll concede the point..

I have to applaud Trump, personally, just to let you know the issue appeals across the aisle....

Sanders pays lip service to the issue... He hasn't walked the walk yet...

But do you see my point??

If Trump was running as a Democrat ya'all would be all over him, MUCH more than you are over Hillary..

It's the power of the almighty -X...

Michale

OK, now THAT was funny!

Heh.

I still think the best spoof of this Star Trek episode was the South Park version... I can dig up the link if you're interested... "those points of light are suns..."

Heh.

Hawk Owl [2] -

You know, I vacillated between "Tinkerbell" and "Tinker Bell" and although the Disney-approved version seems to be the latter, I went with the former, which was already in my spell-checker....

But thanks for the kind words!

Mopshell [3] -

Those are the first hard numbers I have seen for any of these factions, I have to admit. You also don't allow for what I assume is a significant overlap between these groups.

12/11/15? Yer on... heh....

Mopshell [4] -

Yeah, they got rid of an adulterer as SOTH (Gingrich) to attempt to replace him with another adulterer (Livingston) before agreeing on a pedophile (Hastert). Thank all that's holy that Larry Flynt was keeping them all honest (although his missed the Hastert-diddling-young-wrestlers thing, admittedly...).

neilmcgovern [5] -

Yeah, the whole SS checks thing is something the hard-right refuses to admit exists, but it is the true deadline....

Michale [7] -

So you're a Ryan supporter? Sure that's not going to backfire on you later?

Heh.

Michale [9] -

1000 Quatloos on that. I'll take that action...

A GOPer will call him a traitor LONG before a Dem will...

Michale [10] -

The shutdowns occurred because Democrats would not compromise on anything..

It was Republican capitulation that prevented and stopped the government shutdowns.

BWAH HAH HAH! Thanks for the laugh, pal. Too bad the entirety of America disagrees with you, isn't it?

John M [18] -

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
-Bene Gesserit teachings

Michale [21] -

Don't look now, but John Boehner's about to cut a deal with Obama. Should put the budget past the 2016 election. So who caved? We could have had a whole bunch of shutdowns instead....

[22] -

Yeah, things don't look especially good for Jeb! right now, do they?

[23] -

Bernie Sanders is the only Dem to refuse all PAC money. So what's your reaction to that? I have to applaud Trump, personally, just to let you know the issue appeals across the aisle....

-CW

I disagree...

Point 1... Trump's Tax Plan is EXACTLY what Democrats have been clamoring for..

Point 2... Trump's eschewing of Super PAC and lobbyist money is ALSO exactly what Democrats have been clamoring for..

If Democrats can overlook Hillary's BLATANT and ONGOING lies and such....

There is absolutely NO REASON for Democrats NOT to overlook Trump's faults..

Put another way...

Trump has a LOT more going for him as a Democrat than Hillary does...

Michale

If Trump was running for POTUS with a '-D' after his name, ya'all would be all over him like white on rice!

Ya'all know it's true...

Michale

Is that wrong??

Michale

He can order the Super PACs to cease using his likeness and quotes and such..

And he has done so..

He can "request" his Super PACs cease taking money and return money already donated..

And he has done so...

Do you think ANY Super PAC would be ABLE to collect any donations under such circumstances???

What doesn't Hillary match Trump's actions??

Why don't ya'all clamor for Hillary to match Trump's actions??

Because ya'all aren't REALLY against big money, dark money in campaigns..

Ya'all are just against REPUBLICAN big money and REPUBLICAN dark money...

Ya'all don't have a problem with big money, dark money for Democrats...

The facts are clear...

Michale

That's another nice sound bite from our Trump a Doodle Dandy, but how can he order an independent, uncoordinated Super Pac to return anything? Anymore than Clinton can. What walk? All talk, on that we can agree.

Trump has instructed his Super PACs to return ALL money to donors....

He has also challenged Hillary to do the same...

Now, I *KNOW* how ya'all are against big money in elections...

So I *KNOW* ya'all support Trump in this.. Right??

Yea... That's what I thought...

Trump walks the walk...

With ya'all.. It's all talk....

Michale

Looks like Bush is also on his way out.. :D

President Trump anyone?? :D heh

Michale

But.....

Ya'all ALSO believe that it is the epitome of evil and terrorism when REPUBLICANS use the threats of shutdowns to push THEIR partisan agenda..

Explain to me how that is NOT blatant hypocrisy...

If one were to apply YOUR standards to YOUR Democrats, then it's DEMOCRATS who are the "terrorists"...

Michale

What does the hemisphere matter??

That's like saying "We face NO military threat from ZOMBIE CLOWNS, so it's OK if we shut down our military.."

I am also constrained to point out that shutting down the military means our soldiers won't get paid..

Now, YA'ALL seem to think it's a big deal when seniors et al won't get their SS checks...

But ya'all have NO PROBLEM with forcing a military shutdown and our service men and women won't get paid..

It's blatant hypocrisy, John... Blatant hypocrisy to further a partisan agenda...

That's all it is...

2.) Closing Guatanamo was one of Obama's first major campaign promises from his first run for the White House. Something that the Democratic base has been very disappointed about that he has not yet been able to accomplish. You can hardly expect him to give up on it, can you. especially since he was elected on it twice?

Yea, and Republicans believed a lot of what THEY believed when the government shutdown happens..

So what??

If a Party really REALLY wants something, it's OK to use ANY means to get it??

" Let's say that somebody has something that I want more than they do, and I take it. Would I—"
"You would be arrested for that."
"But what if I really want it? "
"It's illegal. You'd still be arrested."
"No, sir, you don't understand, I really do want it more than they do—"
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

:D

It's just like with politicizing tragedies, JM..

It's OK if Democrats do it but it's the epitome of evil and terrorism when Republicans do it...

:D

Michale

"For example... Obama and the Democrats would rather shut down this country's military and leave us completely defenseless because they want to push their Gitmo agenda.."

"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." - Paul Muad'Dib, DUNE.

1.) In any case, we will not be defenseless by any means. We face NO military threat in THIS hemisphere. We spend more on defense than the next 13 nations in the world COMBINED. This includes; Russia, China, Britain, France, and Japan.

2.) Closing Guatanamo was one of Obama's first major campaign promises from his first run for the White House. Something that the Democratic base has been very disappointed about that he has not yet been able to accomplish. You can hardly expect him to give up on it, can you. especially since he was elected on it twice?

3.) Guantanamo is not the only or major reason the Defense bill was vetoed. It was vetoed primarily because of the way it uses money meant for war spending to avoid automatic budget cuts to military programs, thus violating the sequestration that Republicans originally agreed to, while still leaving domestic programs subject to the cuts. It carves out a "special" exemption for defense only.

I have no advice to Ryan except: don't take the job - even if they promise to let you spend time with your wife and kids. The governing dynamics that applied to Boehner will apply to Ryan.

In the words of Lilly Tomlin: "Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse." Also from Tomlin "We're all in this alone."

For example... Obama and the Democrats would rather shut down this country's military and leave us completely defenseless because they want to push their Gitmo agenda...

I fail to see any difference in the Demcorat Party's actions and what ya'all accuse the Tea Party of....

Michale

It's rather ironic... Your advice on how Ryan can deal with the Tea Party ALSO applies to how Ryan can deal with the Democrat Party..

Both factions are equally intransigent and both factions want to push their agenda so much that they ignore ANY possibility of compromise...

Funny, eh? :D

This sentence is worth running with, especially the "dynamics" and "near impossible" parts.

It seems to me that Ryan, although he probably doesn't know this, is caught up in a Nash Equilibrium. If you've watched the movie "Beautiful Mind," you know Nash was a mathematician, but even if you paid close attention to the dialog, you wouldn't learn very much about what a Nash Equilibrium is. If you've ever played the game rock:paper:scissors you have an intuitive feel for one type of Nash Equilibrium.

Basically, a Nash Equilibrium is a non-cooperative game in which all players know the strategic options open to all the other players, and no player can benefit from deviating from their current strategy, which may be pure or a random selection from a set of strategies. Any player in the game is worse off if they change their strategies....even though there may be another mix of strategies that would benefit many, or possibly even all players. That doesn't matter - you can't get there from here, unless individual players cooperate by creating "contracts" to basically jump together. Ah, but making a contract is in fact a strategy, which may hurt any player who has an option to make a contract. Think Tea Party, or Big Money Donors, or any form of ideological purity.

Back to "So for all the praise Ryan is now getting he's still got an almost-impossible task in front of him." The only way out is chance the "governing dynamics." Something like a war perhaps, or an economic collapse, or just decades long term political drift as countries, ours included slowly evolve in mysterious ways.

Basically your complaint is, "Republicans won't do what WE want them to do so it's all their fault!!"

Funny thing is, Republicans say the EXACT same thing about Democrats...

"And so it goes... and so it goes...."
-Billy Joel

:D

Michale

"These are the facts and they are undisputed"
-Captain 'Smilin' Jack Ross, A FEW GOOD MEN

Michlae

Sorry, but I am not going to let you re-write recent history..

The shutdowns occurred because Democrats would not compromise on anything..

It was Republican capitulation that prevented and stopped the government shutdowns.

This is documented as fact...

Michale

I have a corollary bet...

"How long after Paul Ryan is sworn in as speaker will a Democrat in the House be publicly quoted calling him a 'terrorist' or a 'hostage taker'.."

THAT has a bigger chance of happening.

Michale

"The problem is, it's IMPOSSIBLE to "make deals" with Democrats because their only "deal making" consists of "Our Way Or The Highway"..."

Once again, you are confusing complete capitulation to Republican demands by Democrats with "compromise." It is the Republicans who are completely intransigent, hence the government shutdowns.

Mopshell wrote:

"Please explain the math here because I can't see how such a small minority group could accomplish this."

It is called "the fear of having a tea party member unseat you in a Republican primary."

The problem is, it's IMPOSSIBLE to "make deals" with Democrats because their only "deal making" consists of "Our Way Or The Highway"...

But the GOOD news is that Ryan is the DEMOCRAT PARTY choice for Speaker..

If Democrats won't work with Ryan, then their hypocrisy will be on full display...

As it usually is..

Michale

Yea... It's the Demcorat Party faction... :D

Michale

OK, so I don't know the actual date (I'm too lazy to look it up, sorry), but the last day before Congress shuts for Christmas will be when the Republicans compromise and the Freedom (from reality) caucus will call him a traitor.

Reasoning: they will be caught between two groups in their districts: the first will be concerned about their SS checks, and the other will be pounding them on for any sort of compromise - holding out to the last possible moment, crying 'foul' but capitulating will be the best way to save face before going home.

BTW: Reminds me of Chris Ladd's (GOPLifer) contest on when Trump will drop out - I'm following both :)

You say the Freedom Caucus' constant threats to unseat him [Boehner] as speaker meant it would likely have been the end of his House leadership.

Please explain the math here because I can't see how such a small minority group could accomplish this.

It's well known by now that there are currently 36 members of the Freedom Caucus, the group which has been causing most of the trouble. There are 44 members in the Tea Party Caucus and 35 in the Liberty Caucus. They are the three tea party caucuses in the House.

Across all three groups, there are 81 members out of 247 House Republicans. Even if the three groups voted together, they still would not comprise a majority of the majority and nowhere near a majority of the full House membership of 435. Therefore I cannot see how the Freedom Caucus or any combination of the three tea party caucuses could possibly unseat any Speaker.

In fact, we should run a ChrisWeigant.com contest. Just answer the question: "How long after Paul Ryan is sworn in as speaker will a Republican in the House be publicly quoted calling him a 'traitor'?" I will open the betting with 100 Quatloos (our imaginary currency of choice, here) on "December 12th, 2015."

I'll match your 100 Quatloos and place them on December 11th, 2015.

and so begins the Prediction Market of Triskelion (LTD). I say it's about time we had a quatloo based electronic prediction market!

http://www.akrychlick.com/new-gallery-1/wq03f319t2vek7cvzwy8swrq2mqkxu