Sen. Bob Corker, one of the people who helped draft the resolution aspect of the financial reform legislation and who knows full well that McConnell is lying, joined every other Republican in signing a letter opposing the bill. “Moderates” Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe signed as well. In for a penny, in for a pound.
This is not an opposition party, it is a suicide cult. Except they are holding the gun to your head and apparently are not having second thoughts about pulling the trigger.
bago
Suicide cult holding the gun against my head? Unless , I’m a republican senator, UR DOIN IT RONG!
Nick
Why not? The media is doing thier bidding, bitching all day about the lack of bipartisanship and the desire for the President to use this issue to up his and Democrats’ poll numbers.
Senate Dems had to let go of a $50 billion fund in the bill, which, in fairness sounds awfully like a TARP-like thing, but even if that’s not what it was, the media sure made a good cause that it was.
demkat620
On a day when Goldman gets sued for fraud they do this.
Genius. This is going to go over like a lead balloon.
Xenos
Just a WAG, but if the teabaggers are chafing under GOP attempts to coopt them, then without Wall Street the GOP will largely lack an ongoing source of support. Time to dance with them what brought them.
It helps to think of the GOP not as a political phenomenon, but as the public face of the institutions that fund and support the politicians. With the loss of Wall Street funding, sure to follow a proper emasculation of the big banks, who is going to pay to keep the lights on for the RNC?
These Senators are not fighting for their political power, but for the institutional needs of a party that needs the patronage of plutocrats to survive. Power is not even that important any more.
rob!
I wonder what it will take before they give this up.
If they win back some seats in November (likely), they’ll stick with it for a long while.
But if they don’t? What if, after all the crowing and promises to the Teabaggers, they don’t win back either house? I wonder…how long after THAT would they keep this shit up? How many elections will they lose before someone in the party tries to right the ship? 2012? 2016?
A big part of me hopes they never do, and they eventually become completely irrelevant as a national party.
demkat620
And Taibbi is on CNN now.
This oughta be good.
beltane
Murder-suicide cult, you mean. And yet millions of Americans will vote for these people in November. Believe it or not, there are many many people who seem to think dunking their head in a dirty toilet bowl is good for their health.
Jean
@demkat620: And what does Taibbi say? Yesterday, Booman predicted that the GOP would not be able to get the numbers for a filibuster. This was going to fail. But now, not so much. So sickening.
Redshirt
If we had a media, they would not be able to get away with it. But instead we have several propaganda outlets and the rest entertainment news. Print is dying, and they angry voices of a few stir up currents far beyond their listenership.
Obama has had success upon success even in this climate, and gets little respect. The Republicans dominate the media in ways beyond belief, and control the story. We’re being poisoned by our news.
Billy K
Anything to energize the Teabaggers. Then let them do the dirty work.
BruceFromOhio
This falls’ kool-aid will be paid for by corporations, courtesy of Bush’s Supremes. If the DNC gets off its arse and goes for the jugular(s), I may have to kick in some green to help them.
Elisabeth
@Nick:
I sort of defended letting go of that slush fund thingy somewhere else but just once I’d like Dems to be united in explaining what something is and why it’s a good thing instead of giving it away.
(Although, and the reason I defended the “cave,” is that there apparently is some other mechanism they have in mind that still will not require taxpayer bailouts.)
Steaming Pile
@BruceFromOhio: That’s IF. Damn DSCC called me this morning about 11:30. There is no escape.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Just be glad you are no longer on that side. You would have to build a mote around your house and fill it with Piranha to keep the rage virus teatards out. The GOP today reminds me of killer ants herding Aphids for their nectar.
Libby
Not only do they not pay a price for lying, they get rewarded for it with appearances on the bobblehead shows and op-ed pages. Hell, they make tons of money on it in every way. It takes a conscience to reject that in favor of doing what’s honest and right… these people are sociopaths.
jl
I think the GOP letter stopped short of threatening (or promising) a filibuster.
We can complain about Democratic liberals and progressives, but is there anything in this universe weaker and more insignificant than a Republican moderate?
They cannot even bungle empty threats. At least the Dems can that much.
Edit: and the idea of ruthless bullies pushing around poor defenseless weaklings broght to mind the three ‘pets’ destroying Cole this weekend. Where’s the videos? Or did the animals tear everything up before the poor hapless Cole could point the camera?
D-Chance.
Whoop-dee.
In the meantime, Goldman Sachs is being nailed by the SEC, and BOTH PARTIES are already out front trying to tie each other to the bank.
So, get ready for another tiresome, boring round of “They did it! / No, they did it!”.
BruceFromOhio
@Steaming Pile:
DCCC and DSCC got the rage litany months back. “I-busted-my-ass-getting-you-clowns-elected-and-all-you’ve-done-is-fuck-it-up-take-my-name-off-your-list-NOW!!” worked pretty well : no more calls. My faves are Sen. Sherrod Browns’ PAC, and any Dem who runs against Mean Jean Schmidt or Bachmann Crazy Overdrive. Love you, Act Blue!
BruceFromOhio
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Nice image. Comes down to the almighty dollar, doesn’t it? The trick is how to make the money or the recipients so toxic that it kills the hives, or weakens them so as not to threaten the rest of the ecosystem.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Jean:
From what I understand McConnell had to remove the filibuster threat to get one of the Maine senators to sign. I read something about it over at the GoS and I think Tweety had someone on tonight that mentioned this too. They were discussing this very thing.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Is a mote a very small moat? Is a mud puddle a mote? Damn, what’s this thing in my eye…
Niques
@jl:
I was wondering if they weren’t testing the waters to see just how angry the populist might be.
I think you’re right about the GOP needing their Wall St. funding . . . accustomed to wasting such vast amounts of money, they weren’t even aware of the $6000 spent at the bondage strip club.
Who’s going to finance them if the bankers/investors can no longer afford to??
Omnes Omnibus
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): Are we mocking spelling errors tonight? How fun.
Alice Blue
I’ve got nothiin’.
This plus the crappy political news in general just makes me want to go to bed and pull the covers over my head. And the “moderate” Maine Twins make my blood pressure skyrocket as much as the wingnuts do.
AngusTheGodOfMeat
This is just about the same bunch who voted in a bloc to keep alive, against her wishes, a woman whose brain was sawdust, just to make a political point.
Why anything they would do would surprise anyone is a mystery. They will not stop at anything.
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. What did we think that meant?
Jean
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): So, they’re seeing what the reaction is? I really did believe they were not going to get away with this lie, that they would lose AGAIN.
eemom
well, there’s one thing you gotta say for them: they got no PUMAs.
That may be ALL they have, but it seems to be enough.
jl
@Niques:
@Xenos: said
“without Wall Street the GOP will largely lack an ongoing source of support. Time to dance with them what brought them.”
I would go further. Not only does the GOP need Wall Street, the need the current Wall Street. Only the most sociopathic suicidal greedheads would go along with the positions enforced by the GOP Congressional leadership and the reactionary media loons.
JP Morgan himself would blanche and run from this crowd.
jwb
@Libby: Except fewer and fewer people are watching the bobbleheads; unfortunately that means that the teabagger demographic is making up an increasingly large portion of the audience.
Church Lady
@D-Chance.: The GOP stands a better chance of making the mud stick on the Dems. Go to Open Secrets.http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=N00009638 Going back to 1990, Goldman always gives more money to the Dems. The closest split has been 55/45. During the 2008 campaign cycle, the Dems got 75% of Goldman’s money, to the tune of over 4.5 million. Goldman was also the second largest donor (PACs and Individuals combined to the Obama Campaign. They gave him almost 1 million.
Ailuridae
Filibustering this is going to be a very hard sell in a lot of the country for the GOP. Finish the bill, put it up for a vote and force them to cast their vote to prevent it from coming to the floor. I want to see Snowe, Collins and Brown cast votes against this.
jl
Is there a place I can go to see pics of the teabaggers waving and displaying teabags? I need some pics to show around the next time one of them accuses me of being vulgar uncivil and provocative by using that term.
Or a source for them using the term teabagger?
I remember seeing some Congresscritter nutcase on some national TV morning show waving two teabags on both sides of his head. I did not even know what the naughty naughty meaning of teabag was back then. But I remember that TV clip. Seems to me that they earned that name.
Tom
Bob Corker used to be my Mayor. He was a fairly reasonable guy, then. I didn’t vote for him for Senator, but I had hopes he’d be somewhat sensible. I’m sorry, America.
Tennessee would be a great place to live were it not for all the Tennesseans who live here.
Niques
@Church Lady: I don’t think the “Dems took more money than we did” will work . . . Dems are trying to get regulation. Pubs are blocking it. Simple.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Since I rarely ever note spelling mistakes (I am sure I add plenty of my own to the fray), no. I just thought it (a small moat being a mote) was funny and if you noted my last sentence you might see that I took a shot at myself for saying what I did. I like to flame myself when bored.
Is that answer ok or would you like a more detailed answer? I hate seeing confused people and don’t want to add to the problem.
eemom
for anyone getting depressed, just go back and look at the headlines about Goldman Sachs. Go look at how they’ve multiplied on memeorandum.
A small step forward in the giant scheme of things, to be sure — but nonetheless, those headlines are a beautiful sight.
Omnes Omnibus
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): I was just asking.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Church Lady: And yet, strangely, it’s the Democrats that are willing to act independently of Goldman Sachs, not the Republicans. In other words, it’s not the money that’s the problem, it’s the willingness of those who take it to allow themselves to be corrupted.
And no, this is not an argument for ending limits on campaign contributions, because a weak politician is a dangerous person.
mr. whipple
I’m so sick of this shit. It was the same with HCR, appease their bullshit(which meanwhile appears to validate it) and still get nothing in return. STOP.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Jean:
When McConnell handed this letter to the Democrats he didn’t have his teeth in his mouth. This toothless letter is from a toothless party, they know this is not going to go well for them no matter what they do. All they can hope to do is to poison public perception on this to stop any movement.
This is lose-lose-lose for them.
eemom
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
see what I mean? SEE?? You’ll never catch republicans bickering over the correction of spelling errors. Even if they WERE smart enough to know how to spell anything.
Nick
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
and what the hell makes you think they’re not going to be able to do this?
jl
Build a moat around your house. Or build a mote under your house. But to make a motehill out of a mote in a moat is go from puddle to muddle. IMHO.
Alex
I dunno…this to me smacks of desperation more than strength. Like people have said, this isn’t a calculated political position so much as an addict going in for his fix. The people really are on the side of reform-there’s no doubt about that. And if the Dems keep up the heat (something they’ve definitely been doing so far) I can’t imagine that a Brown even a Maine twin won’t peel off in the end. Brown in particular, if he cares about his political future in MA at all, he’s gotta be smart enough to know that he can’t just tack wingnut all the time.
Splitting Image
@Alice Blue:
Don’t give them a moment’s thought. I wasn’t a fly on the wall at any of the G.O.P.’s party meetings, but I guarantee you Snowe was told that she would be drummed out of the party if she ended up supporting a Democratic bill. Collins and everyone else too.
During the health care debate, I had held out some hope that Snowe would jump ship, but she chose to stay and shut up. You won’t hear many more peeps out of her or Collins until the party finally primaries them out of office.
They are moderates no more.
John Cole
@Church Lady: Except for the inconvenient fact that it is a Democratic run SEC prosecuting Goldman.
I’m sure you’ll manage to overlook that, though.
Mark S.
Don’t they have to filibuster? What the hell is the point of this otherwise?
I have some radical advice for the GOP: Why not actually try doing your jobs? Negotiate in good faith. Come up with proposals besides cutting taxes across the board. Be a loyal opposition. Stop lying.
Ken
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): Hopefully, it’s not a moat.
PeakVT
Scandinavian Airlines has found a solution to the volcanic ash problem.
Jules
@Church Lady:
Who gives a shit how much money some Dems may have taken from the Banks or Wall Street?
They are not the ones trying to block regulation.
SIA
@Tom: I can’t stand Corker (being in GA I have an innate hatred of smug, entitled, rich, Southern white men) but I also thought there might be a thread of reasonableness there. I do get a sense it goes against the grain for him to vote against this.
ETA: And I don’t love Harold Ford any better than Corker, but any guy that lets his campaign do what Corker did is a first-class dick, period.
Yutsano
@PeakVT: Read the Iceland/Britain joke a couple of posts down. I was rolling my ass off.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal): Oh, that’s just Hillbilly for moat. Jeesh, do i have to explain everything to you earth people.
handy
@John Cole: I was originally going to write something along the lines of: “Never underestimate the ability of Republicans to turn a weakness into a strength,” but honestly this just feels like, at best a non-winning strategy for them. I can’t imagine a more unpopular group in the voting public’s eye than the banking sector right now.
@Mark S.: Come on now Mark, let’s not have crazy talk like that.
SRW1
@Yutsano:
Maybe that was the info Kaupthing withheld from its customers!
Would make for a better defense though than what Goldman-Schmucks is offering.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Omnes Omnibus:
No prob. Hopefully I delivered. :)
@eemom:
It’s that DFH punching here, it’s addicitve!
@Nick: “and what the hell makes you think they’re not going to be able to do this?”
Ask them how that worked with HCR, and that was a divisive issue. Nearly everyone wants something done about Wall Street so the Repubs are courting disaster if they are perceived to have killed reform to cash in on it.
Go ahead, you do the worrying for me and we will talk when it’s over, k? :)
@jl: “Build a moat around your house. Or build a mote under your house. But to make a motehill out of a mote in a moat is go from puddle to muddle.
Beautifully stated. ;)
@Kevin: “Hopefully, it’s not a moat.”
If it was would I be able to cross the moat by crossing my eyes?
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: “Oh, that’s just Hillbilly for moat. Jeesh, do i have to explain everything to you earth people.”
Yes? BTW, I welcome our hillbilly alien overlords. Just thought I would get that out there right away.
:)
Tom
@SIA:
The real Bob Corker is a pragmatic right-of-center technocrat, without strong ideological bents. Unfortunately, becoming and being a national politician has caused him to conform to the standard Republiclone conventions. It actually makes his behavior thus far worse.
I can almost forgive a guy for being an asshole when it’s his basic nature and he can’t help it. A guy who adopts the persona of an asshole because it is politically expedient is inexcusable.
My only hope is that it’s still early in his first term. He still has a chance to establish his own identity – the Borg hasn’t consumed him yet. I don’t look favorably on his chances.
Comrade Kevin
Republicans are like this: Suicide Pact: You first
Comrade Kevin
So, Corker is trapped by a party that originally got him elected as a “technocrat”, but now demands that he be a nutjob?
Serves you right, asshole!
mclaren
Um…that’s already happened. Republicans right now have as much power as caterpillars in a sealed mayo jar.
Lisa K.
@Tom:
How do you think I feel? My senators are the moderate media darlings Snowe & Collins, and Snowe especially is a goddess in this state. Barf.
Peter
@Church Lady: I’d be very surprised if they try to take that tactic. That sounds like an invitation for the Dems to paint themselves as more corruption resistant: we took more money than they did, and we’re STILL fighting for you, while they’re trying to block reforms that will prevent another meltdown.
Libby
@jwb: JWB, I don’t think most of the tea party types even watch the bobbleheads. They watch Beck. The Villagers are the target audience and living in their little bubble, think these very serious people represent the real world.
MarkJ
And the “perpetual bailouts” meme continues. I’ve heard it at least three times on the supposedly liberal NPR over the past couple of days, and it has not been fact checked once by them, including this morning when Juan Williams mentioned it twice in a conversation with Scott Simon on weekend edition. This is the best our liberal news media can do to check untrue Republican rhetoric.
El Cid
@MarkJ: NPR will let that meme be continued, with the justification that some show at some time during the week from some related public radio network (This American Life) may offer a countering view, so, all good!