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Sunday Roundup

Posted: 07/17/11 01:00 AM ET

Harry Potter mania is in full effect this week, with the arrival of the blockbuster series' final cinematic installment. As the ubiquitous movie posters say, "It All Ends." Here in the Muggle world, a similar dark sense of finality hangs over the swirling debt ceiling debate, with its looming August 2 deadline. In that drama, DC's lead actors have been slipping in and out of character. President Obama -- who has announced his interest in starring in a sequel of his own -- signaled his willingness to accept draconian spending cuts, while Mitch McConnell couched his Snape-like approach in "crassly political terms," flatly declaring: "I refuse to help Barack Obama get reelected." Meanwhile, with the emphasis on debt reduction, another week passed without the stars of the show tackling the jobs crisis -- or, as it's known in Washington, "That Which Shall Not Be Prioritized."

 
 
 

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Harry Potter mania is in full effect this week, with the arrival of the blockbuster series' final cinematic installment. As the ubiquitous movie posters say, "It All Ends." Here in the Muggle world,...
Harry Potter mania is in full effect this week, with the arrival of the blockbuster series' final cinematic installment. As the ubiquitous movie posters say, "It All Ends." Here in the Muggle world,...
 
 
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Czechster
Enough is enough
10:29 PM on 07/17/2011
Ms. Huffington put it well. The next week will be interesting to say the least.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
AngryChair
"It" was an INSIDE JOB
09:48 PM on 07/17/2011
Why would anyone expect Washington to address the jobs crisis? For years they have facilitated and even subsidized the offshoring of millions of jobs, while simultaneously importing millions of third world laborers (legal and illegal). Actions speak much louder than words, especially when it comes to politicians.

Third World America remains the unmistakable objective of our national leaders - and the globalist elite they work for. That goes for both parties. Left vs. right can now be seen as a subterfuge, a divide-and-distract ploy. The real battle is globalism vs. nationalism and only the globalists have shown up.

Know your enemy. Say no to globalism and the liquidation of America.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
JNEGRONI
Civility amidst anonymity
08:55 PM on 07/17/2011
"That Which Should Not Be Prioritized" should be directed towards these decisions on "draconian" spending cuts
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
vesaversa1
Stupid is forever, ignorance can be fixed.
06:44 PM on 07/17/2011
Harry Potter mania. I know about this Harry Potter fellow i had to shell out some pretty good cash for my youngsters to see this movie .Hype
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
jamenta
There are other human values besides greed
08:00 PM on 07/17/2011
It was a fun movie. But the odd part about it for me - I found myself enjoying the special effects more than the story. Oh well.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
LeftLeaner
Independent Populist
06:44 PM on 07/17/2011
How eloquently put
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wonketteRAWKS
Hypocrisy is prevalent in BOTH parties!
06:26 PM on 07/17/2011
And yet, here we are fighting about which party is better for us. Wake up, they are both the same! Money talks......
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SCStoday
Republicans are holding back economy
06:11 PM on 07/17/2011
I have complete faith Obama will cave to the Republicans. The Republicans are stronger, more organized, and determined.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
MileHighCityMan
Fight Boldly or Lose
06:47 PM on 07/17/2011
Obama already lost the argument by using SS, a program with no impact on the deficit for at least 25 years, as a political football. It will now be tossed in every future hostage situation as leverage until it is cut, then eventually gone. The ball is already rolling on Medicare and Medicaid.
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Si1ver1ock
the bread of wickedness, the wine of violence
04:53 PM on 07/17/2011
Some simple facts:
The Debt Ceiling Crisis is bogus.
After WW II, the Debt was 120% of GDP, much higher than is is today as percent of GDP.
Republicans refusing to raise the debt ceiling is political extortion bordering on treason.
Republicans had several years under Bush to implement smaller government, they didn't.
The deficit could be easily solved with a reasonable combination of tax hikes and budget cuts.
Our energy infrastructure could be rebuilt with an infrastructure bank funded with energy taxes.

We do not have a Budget Crisis, we have a leadership crisis.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
jamenta
There are other human values besides greed
03:43 PM on 07/17/2011
I'm not too worried. I'm sure Obama will do something that helps the right-wingers more than it does ordinary Americans.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
MileHighCityMan
Fight Boldly or Lose
06:49 PM on 07/17/2011
Yeah but he has to look "pragmatic" and "grown up" for the beltway pundits. What could be more important than that?
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
jamenta
There are other human values besides greed
07:54 PM on 07/17/2011
Saving our country from becoming third world?
03:40 PM on 07/17/2011
the fed borrowed $1 trillion last fiscal year. that's how much it will have to cut if it has to stop borrowing
03:38 PM on 07/17/2011
the federal budget is more than $3 trillion. $1 trillion of that is borrowed. so if the govt can't borrow anymore it will have to cut $1 trillion pretty quickly.
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Chopin
Multiply the truth. Speak truth through power.
03:19 PM on 07/17/2011
The former Soviet Union provides an accurate clue of the fate of a predecessor militarized empire how the American Empire would eventually end. Gorbachev in many ways also provided a clue to how Obama would fulfill a historical role of presiding over breakup of a terminal empire.

Gorbachev spoke about "glasnost" (openness) and "perestroika" (restructuring). Obama spoke about "transparency" and "transformation" (hope you can believe in). Gorbachev presided over endless exhaustive imperial war in Afghanistan. Obama is doing exactly the same thing. Gorbachev awakened and implicitly encouraged internal forces of social rebellion and centrifugal secessionist political forces of imperial disintegration.

Obama is presiding over the distinctive accelerated dismantling of the social fabric built over the past century for the protection, prosperity and wellbeing of the middleworkingclass majority of Americans. Raising social security age from 65 to 67 is tip of the iceberg most visible step in that direction. Other increasingly more draconian measures would follow, ... until the people would sporadically rise up and revolt. Anecdotal talk of secessionist sentiments are sporadically springing up in Texas and California. As the national debt and budget spiral out of control, Washington leadership splinters into incoherent factions, national consensus evaporates, and Washington political process becomes unabashedly visibly open to the highest money bidder, ... people can see where all this is going --- towards disappearance of legitimacy, disintegration of central power and authority.

Similar steps were prelude and set the stage to the demise and disintegration of the USSR Soviet Empire in 1991.
03:39 PM on 07/17/2011
i don't think america is going to end anytime soon.
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Si1ver1ock
the bread of wickedness, the wine of violence
05:21 PM on 07/17/2011
How many Russians thought the same of the USSR?

They had rotten leaders. We have rotten leaders.
04:12 PM on 07/17/2011
Few minor differences;What Gornachev did for his country was good,because he avoided the fall of a Soviet Empire in a bloody civil war,
Second,unlike The US,USSR was a communist dictatorship,without free elections and basic civil liberties.
And thirdly,Obama is not some despot to be blamed for everything that goes wrong,whatever happens,WE as a people are to blame!
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Chopin
Multiply the truth. Speak truth through power.
11:12 PM on 07/17/2011
From a historical perspective, placing blame for an historical event is a question of personal judgment. It has little relevance to whether a process happens or not. In any major historical change and disruption, like demise and disintegration of empire, there are always complex multiple causes and agents of change that facilitate the process.

From a strictly historical perspective, whether elections are proforma exercise like in the Soviet Union, or proforma democratic shell-game flip-flop between two factions of a corporatist duopoly party differs mostly in superficial labeling. The relentless increasing corporate takeover of the political process over the past 3 decades (accelerated over this past decade) demonstrates the futility of a superficial dysfunctional democratic electoral and legislative processes that are essentially mired in money power. The cabal of a small number of corporate trillionaires exercise effective control behind curtains. Whether they back a leader that's eloquent rhetorical orator or incoherent cowboy, the effective "on the ground" policies on major issues remain essentially unaltered in their direction and contents. Most thinking Americans in the past few years have begun to understand and acknowledge that reality in American politics.
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02:16 PM on 07/17/2011
Country run by illusionists....Don't even have to go to Las Vegas.....When your country is run on non-reality(fantacy) and most people can't see it, what can you do???? I guess, just sit back for the virtual non-reality ride.....I didn't pay for this......
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Mark Knudsen
01:46 PM on 07/17/2011
who does one look to as a mentor....A wall street worker...a big banker...surely one of our leaders in Washington...a Georgia school teacher...it seems the pool keeps getting smaller...even some of us are suspect these days...the few that are left seem to be over worked and spread to thin to have much influence... whats a person to do? the answer line is open..the old viking