Rather than analyze every Republican tack and jibe on the debt ceiling, I would just point out that they seem to have a different message every day. Sometimes two or three. On the rare occasions that Boehner looks ready to shake hands, Grover Norquist or Eric Cantor or Jim DeMint will step in and torpedo it. Meanwhile Obama has said the one thing over and over again: he will concede a lot but he won’t concede everything. People can tell the difference, for what that’s worth.
Republicans have no idea what to do. The business base has no doubt phoned with their concerns by now, but if GOP even baby steps towards a deal the tea party idiots will eat them alive.
How do you defuse that situation? Search me. It looks like the party has arrived at a truly existential moment – it has to decide who is in charge, and halfway measures won’t do. Does the party serve wealthy people, who mostly want low taxes and stability, or does it serve tea party anarchists? The issue here is quite similar to the GOP dilemma on immigration in that the party utterly depends on two factions whose demands are not just misaligned but diametrically opposed. The Chamber of Commerce not only wants but in fact depends on undocumented immigrants for more jobs than most people realize, while redneck racists will do almost anything to clean the brown people out of their towns and states. With the most passionate and irreconcilable parties in fight both on their side the GOP cannot address the status quo in any way without serving one and shafting the other.
As recently as the mid-Bush administration Republican initiatives still served the CoC at least as much as they catered to racist bubbas. Can you imagine that now? Of course you can’t. Leading edge GOP policies like Arizona’s SB1070 and the Georgia law that left their unpicked fruit harvest to rot make it look an awful lot like angry, stupid bubbas have a solid grip on the steering wheel.
Boehner and his business lobby could still rally and put armaggeddon back in snooze mode for a few more months. If they do it would count as one hell of an upset against a raging ‘roided-up faction that has won every intra-party battle so far.
***Update***
Sometimes I should read my own damn blog. Clearly DougJ is more optimistic than I am about Mitch McConnell’s latest idea. McConnell still needs to win over Eric Cantor and I’m not as confident at DougJ that it will happen. YMMV.
trollhattan
“Paging Governor Perry, Rick Perry, please answer the nearest White Courtesy [sic] phone.”
Behold, a southern pale rider on a white, somewhat ghey horse, trotting in to save the party from themselves. Well, I can see part 1 happening, anyway.
pragmatism
grover says that he supports mcconnell’s gambit as it will force obama to own raising the ceiling and hurting the economy.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/07/the_worm_has_turned.php?ref=fpblg
Cain
Grover can fuck himself (and I don’t mean the sesame street grover)
Scott
Feh, Rick Perry. Unpopular with his own constituents, presiding over a failing state economy, dumb as a post, uncharismatic as hell.
And feh, Grover Norquist. That dude hates America.
Han's Solo
It was only a matter of time until the Teabaggers declared open warfare on the rest of the GOP.
The wealthy provide the money for Republican campaigns and the rubes provide the votes. This only works as long as the rubes don’t realize they are rubes.
When the Republicans went down in flames in 2008, and lost to a black man, pundits were saying the Republican party was going the way of the Whigs. So what did the Republicans do? They “empowered” the rubes by repackaging them as “Tea Party Patriots”.
But here’s the problem; the Republicans over sold the Tea Party. Now Teabaggers are proud of their political might and not about to give it up.
drkrick
Sounds an awful lot like the Dems dilemma when they were still trying to maintain a coalition of Dixiecrats and urban coastal liberals. They resolved the conflict via the various civil rights measures of the ’60’s and kicked off a decades-long process of redefinition. This may be ’64 all over again for the GOP, but playing the LBJ role, not Goldwater. The bad news – this would mean the migration of the CoC types to the Dems over the next generation or so with accompanying shifts in the ideological center of gravity in the party. At least on economic issues – I don’t think the CoC gives much of a damn on social issues like abortion and gay rights.
Anonymous At Work
Boehner would love to kick the can a few months down the road but Obama’s two sticking points is that the mix include revenue enhancers and the ceiling be raised enough to make it beyond the next election season.
Han's Solo
@trollhattan: Perry has closet problems, don’t expect him to jump in the race.
The Raven
Careful…the “anarchists” are working for the Kochtopus. In other words, two different wealthy factions: Wall Street and Koch/DeVos/etc. Historically, the radical factions usually win these. Hard to say what will happen here; the radicals tipped their hands in their home states and may not have power for much longer.
Zifnab
In all fairness, a lot of the CoC policies were angry, stupid bubba policies too. It’s just that these policies were nuanced and detailed and involved trade deals and relaxed regulations on manufacturing standards and little things that your typical bubba doesn’t really think about.
I remember when Bush cut the value of a human life from $7.2 million to $6.9 million, so he could rejigger the math on requisite safety standards. :-p Or when he packed the Minerals Management department with coke-snorting oil industry ditto-heads.
These led to some disastrous events – Massey Energy mine collapse, BP oil rig explosion, etc, etc – but they weren’t as connect-the-dots obvious as Georgia veggies rotting in fields.
CoC shot itself in the foot ages ago when it embraced Reagan America and put us on the Boom-to-Bust economic cycle. We’re giving up our long term global economic dominance so some Wall Street execs can double down on the next Dot Com boom. :-p Distinguishing between one set of bone-head policies and another seems a bit silly, when they both lead to the same disastrous economic ends.
stuckinred
The Raven
T Boone Pickens was hammerin the Koch bros on Mornin Joe today.
Baud
Two good things about the business wing of the GOP. First, as you mentioned, they don’t care about social issues, and if anything, may lean progressive on those issues if there were political gain in doing so. Second, as the debt ceiling issue shows, they don’t have a death wish.
Bender
Heh. Well, I suppose if anyone is qualified to talk about the intricacies of Republican Party politics, it’s someone who has never been a part of it and hates it with a passion.
Or, as President Fast and Furious would say, you’ve presented a false choice.
taylormattd
If this McConnell plan comes to fruition, this is a slam dunk win for the democrats and Obama. This will mean a clean rise in the debt ceiling with ZERO cuts. NONE.
jl
Norquist OK’s tactical surrender, apparently until next election, as commenter above notes. We will see what public fuss the mighty teabagger hordes of righteousness make now that the astroturfers get the signal to retreat.
Maybe their is a real grass roots to the teabaggers, but I am doubtful. They still might stay home next election however, but right now, will it be anything more than squacking on blogs (like I am doing right now, which affects precisely nothing outside this warm circle of dear friends)?
Hope for the best, and that the show is over. We shall see.
Roger Moore
Immigration isn’t exactly a tower of Democratic strength, either; it’s an issue that really cuts across current party lines. The organized labor wing of the Democratic party dislikes immigration for about the same reason the CoC likes it, while the social justice and ethnic solidarity wings of the party like it for about the same reason the racist yahoo wing of the Republican party hates it.
Scott
Bender: Heh. Well, I suppose if anyone is qualified to talk about the intricacies of Republican Party politics, it’s someone who has never been a part of it and hates it with a passion.
So… why should we listen to Republicans talk about America?
RalfW
It is interesting, ain’t it.
The left squabbles all the time and often looks like it’s disarrayed and pissy. Republicans have incredible discipline. Somehow they manage thru dogwhistles, pork (now very reduced in fat), split marketing messages to their different bases, and wedge issues, they’ve kept the whole weird ball o’ twine together.
But these polar opposites above make it seem to me like the cost of discipline is a once-in-a-great-while massive pressure explosion. Or so I hope.
Han's Solo
If the Republicans are cynical enough they will realize that most of the Tea Baggers are Yoda’s age, and therefore not likely to be a reliable voting block for very long. They will, therefore, side with the wealthy over the rubes.
Besides, with the wealthy’s money they can mount any advertising campaign they want. The votes just aren’t as important as the money, not for the GOP.
Lolis
OT: Sen. Jim Webb has come out against any revenue increases. Unlike Ben Nelson, he is retiring and does not live in dark red state. Douchebag.
Obviously, some kind of clean bill is the only thing with votes to pass. This is coming full circle.
trollhattan
@ Scott & Han’s Solo
Yup, I agree he’d be out of the running in a more…typical Republican lineup but at present there’s no doctrinaire candidate to come in and vacuum up the traditional big campaign money. The others are going to knock the stuffing out of one another trying to prove they’re the weirdest, damnit!
He’s from the South, he’s from Texas, he’s executed more people than anybody else… what’s wrong with the occasional double-wetsuit dressup party? (Not that there’s anything wrong….)
I think he’s running–he’s not poking around Iowa and New Hampshire out of sheer curiosity.
nastybrutishntall
“We took ur jerbs!”
Hunter Gathers
Sounds like McConnell and Boehner are going to be forced to play Rrrmrrrmrrrfrrrmrrr or Consequences. The rules are the same as the home version.
JPL
Why is this a win? The repubs want the President to write down his proposal to cut the deficit and then they will use that to run against him. The Republicans would run ads saying the President wants to kill you because between 65 and 66 you will not be qualified for medicare.
They don’t want to pass the spending bill they just want something to campaign on.
Dennis SGMM
I’m not sure that the GOP would recognize an existential moment if it bit them on the ass. A lot depends on whether or not the loonies will be mollified by the same kind of excuses and bullshit that the fundies have accepted for so many years.
This may, at last, be the situation that trumps the Republicans’ well honed loony management skills.
jl
The GOP’s righteous and noble principled stands change faster than Balloon Juice front posters can type! Yippee!
Like a rock, they stand, young Tim F, roll with the deadly farce.
Spaghetti Lee
It seems like Norquist and McConnell are banking on the public actually caring about arcane political maneuvering regarding the debt ceiling, and punishing Obama for it. Will the public care? I’m thinking this is an instance where America’s short and easily distracted memory will actually work against the Republicans for once.
Georgia Pig
All you need to know is that Michele Bachmann is outpolling Mitt Romney in Iowa.
Jim C.
@28
That could be because, whatever her faults, Bachmann actually believes what she says. She may be a lunatic, but at least she comes across as a somewhat honest lunatic.
On the other hand, I feel like taking a bath just typing Romney’s name he’s so full of shit.
freelancer
So Obama should pull a Heisenberg and drive over them with his Pontiac Aztek and shoot them in the head?
jl
@24: That would be only be true if Obama really wants to raise the Medicare eligibility age. I thought the idea was so bad I criticized it even as a proposal that would probably never be enacted.
But I suspect Obama does not really want to do something like that if he does not have to (even though, as I said, I think it was a mistake even as a ploy).
If the scope of the deal is wide enough so that Obama can propose stuff like cuts to oil corporation subsidies, or big ag subsidies, or propose a public option, seems like pure win win win win, and also win, for Dems.
Jennifer
As I was saying yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, and the day before THAT…
…this will end when the corporate owners of the GOP get them on the phone and promise them they’ll get no financial support if they put everything in the shitter with a default.
Looks like those calls have started.
When it comes down to choosing between their sponsors and the bufords they’ve suckered into voting for them, they’ll go for the money. Duh. They’re REPUBLICANS; they ALWAYS put money ahead of people.
Besides, they know they can convince the bufords to believe the next lot of phony bullshit they float anyway, so there’s not much risk there. I mean, WTF, they’ve been telling them for 40 years now that they’re going to outlaw abortion and have never delivered on it, but the anti-choice nuts continue to show up and pull levers for them. It’s not like they won’t be able to bullshit them this time around, too. And they know it.
Linda Featheringill
Tim:
I think that Dougie’s wrong on this one. McConnell’s suggestion is a bad idea. It should be roundly ignored.
stuckinred
Dennis SGMM
Ding, we have a winner.
quannlace
Cantor? Feh. The man should have the word ‘sociopath’ tattooed on his forehead. Still can’t get over what he said to tornado victims this past Spring.
*****
Love how Boehner et al. have been desperately trying to pin all the blame for….anything on Obama, today. “He needs to show us his plan.”
He’s been showing it to you for the past week, idiots.
rob!
If The Republican Party manages to finally rip itself apart during Obama’s presidency, he will be the Greatest President of My Lifetime.
Even if he had little to really do with it, it will still be on his watch that the greatest threat to this country will have been finally thrown onto the ashheap of history. I’d support putting his jug-eared mug on Mount Fucking Rushmore.
kindness
McConnell’s latest ploy is just him hoping he can shit on the President multiple times before the next election. Notice how 3 separate votes will be taken for each raising of the debt ceiling. There would be 4 debt ceiling raises between now & the next election.
Obama would be stupid to take this deal. At this point, I say either make them produce a clean bill (no matter how much Obama wants to use this situation to cut SS/Medicare/Medical).
bemused
I’m enjoying Sharpton tear into Judson Phillips. Sharpton is a lot more fun to watch than Cenk.
J.W. Hamner
Corporate interests fund the Tea Party. I don’t think there is any chance in hell they do anything other then dance to their corporate overlords tune.
Davis X. Machina
Moody’s downgraded Ireland’s debt to junk today. Spain and Italy, both way too big for a conventional bailout, are in deep doo-doo. Greece and Portugal, you knew about.
I’m guessing Bloomberg was paid to send a message, and the message was received.
The markets aren’t interested in what the teahadis want, or think, or feel, or believe, not in the teeth of a replay of 2008.
General Stuck
The GOP has always been a largely loose coalition of several largely disparate groups, mostly unto themselves, and often with conflicting agendas. Country club wingers versus the xenophobes messing around cheap labor of minorities in the country illegally. Fiscal conservative, but socially liberal NE and mid west repubs, who are put off by the Xenophobe wing of the GOP. Mixed in with assorted crazies like neo cons, and the list goes on. The GOP came totally unglued from its movement conservative moorings and political inertia after Bush, and dem sweeps in 06 and 08, and the void was filled with maniacal nihilists and anarchists that is the largely southern based tea party.
Everyone in the decimated GOP flew toward that light, like moths, that turned out to be a bonfire of the inanities, and now they got led way on down the Yellow Brick Road, and don’t know what to do. Submit to the insanity of the unhinged energy the tea party brings to disassembled factions very much needing that energy, or just becoming a semi responsible loyal minority, and cutting loose the tea tards as the spirit of cause, whatever that be.
Dems are in good shape. Our differences are largely shallow and based on different ideas of process, and degrees of this or that element of an agreed upon basic philosophy and usually policies to support that philosophy.
The dem party is often disparate with a willful degree of independence from itself, or it appears sometimes.
JPL
Dear
AssholesRepublicans,Spending Cuts 50 percent
Revenue increased 50 percent
Total.. 4 trillion
Now get to work and do your job.
President of the United States
Linda Featheringill
jpl #42
“Dear Assholes Republicans,
Spending Cuts 50 percent
Revenue increased 50 percent
Total.. 4 trillion
Now get to work and do your job.
President of the United States”
Amen, brother. Amen.
RossInDetroit
I got a 1/100 Euro coin (cent) in change today. I’m pondering what this means.
El Cid
I promise you — when articles began appearing about Georgia farmers really not being able to have their crops harvested, a good number of local legislators asked about it on the TV box really were surprised.
It wasn’t even because they believed all this bullshit about how once the illegals were gone somebody would show up and do all that for pay.
It’s that they didn’t even consider it. They didn’t think about what would be the consequences of a law they passed.
And then the same ones got all jumpy because their rural white farmer constituency didn’t like their voices in the Georgia Growers’ Association ignored when they asked that any such reform be done in such a way as to not disrupt Georgia’s harvests.
Oh well, fuck you, we ain’t got no damn time to think about shit, like them damn librul Starbux ayleets.
stuckinred
bemused
Is this permanent?
Just Some Fuckhead
From the Bloomberg article linked above:
Wow, all that elebentybillion chess Obama-fu to position himself as the “reasonable” one doesn’t seem to be the message that’s coming through. Imagine that.
stuckinred
El Cid
Idiot Deal was iffy on signing it but went ahead. These moonpie eatin morons are getting just what they deserve.
Cat Lady
Davis X. Machina:
Bloomberg still can’t stop himself from the “both sides are doing it” frame. I have yet to see the Republicans being called out in public for their obstructionism by their team, and until that happens the teatards won’t get it.
Georgia Pig
@41. The GOP began to devolve when it’s center of gravity moved from Ohio to cable TV and talk radio. That meant it became less about economic interests (farmers and merchants) and more about ideology (social conservatives, xenophobes and gold standard fetishists). You can negotiate with an interest, but not with an audience.
Catsy
@Linda:
Why?
If implemented as described, it completely destroys all of the leverage the GOP had with which to take the country hostage and force concessions.
Right now, the advantage is to obstructionists. A bill must pass in order to raise the debt ceiling, and the default outcome if no action is taken is that the debt ceiling doesn’t get raised. The GOP can, consequently, threaten economic catastrophe simply by refusing to pass a bill.
In McConnell’s deal, this would be reversed–Obama would be able to raise the debt ceiling unless stopped by a two-thirds majority vote. The default outcome with no action is then that the debt ceiling raises–the GOP can’t threaten to blow up the economy by running out the clock, they have to pass a bill in order to stop it.
If Republicans actually think this is a good idea, it is only because 1) they realize they’ve painted themselves into a corner and think this is the only way to split the baby between the teabaggers and economic reality, and 2) they’ve drunk enough of their own Kool-Aid to believe that forcing Obama and the Dems to own the raise of the debt ceiling actually has a meaningful political downside. Polls seem to suggest that most Americans just don’t care that much.
Jim C.
People forget that Bloomberg is nominally a Republican. He made himself an Independent because he wasn’t going to win in New York any other way, but he’s basically a somewhat moderate Republican.
He’s not completely batshit crazy like most of them, but he’s certainly not going to come right out and say, “Republicans, quit being dicks and raise the damn debt ceiling before you take billions of dollars out of my net worth when the economy collapses.”
b-psycho
Calling the teabaggers “anarchists” is an insult to anarchists.
Rhoda
This is McCain suspending his campaign all over again, I mean fuck!
McConnell is very, very, very afraid. (Yes, all three verys.)
Spaghetti Lee
McConnell is very, very, very afraid.
Yeah, I can see it in his face.
mr. whipple
This is a loser for Dems, and they shouldn’t touch it. The GOP demagugued the debt all their way to a majority. Now, when it’s time to govern, they are too chicken to make tough choices.
This would force Obama to make those choices, and raising the debt ceiling is extremely unpopular. There is no political upside for Obama to do the GOP’s dirty work for them just because they are incompetent at governance.
sukabi
hey Tim, they (GOP) shit their own bed, let them sleep in it… or change it… it will take them years to figure their way out of this mess of their own making.
I’m going to sit here and smile.
stuckinred
debt ceiling is extremely unpopular.
Shit, most people don’t have a fucking clue, give me a break.
mr. whipple
I’d grant you that they have no idea of what the consequences would be by defaulting, but the polling I’ve seen has been overwhelmingly against raising it.
If Obama would accept this deal, they’d demagogue ‘Obama is a tax and spend liberal commie socialist’ all the way to even a bigger House majority and a majority in the Senate, as well as making his reelection harder.
jl
Except for teabaggers, the vast majority of voters do not care about the debt even in normal times, unless a push poll or rigged survey tortures something out of them.
And now is not a normal time. Jobs are much more important to the voters than the deficit or the debt ceiling.
mr. whipple
Ah crap, in moderation for the ‘s’ word.
bemused
stuckinred, Nah, don’t think so. Cenkie is on vacation.
Chris
I think the problem’s even more simple that a conflict between the GOP elites and the base – it’s a conflict between what the GOP has promised, and reality.
The GOP’s spent decades pumping so much crap into the national dialogue that we now have a population where a slim majority is more afraid of raising the debt ceiling than of not raising it – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of completely suicidal ideas that are now commonly accepted wisdom.
The people are the top, like Boehner and his Wall Street masters, know it’s bullshit, and they know how bad things could get if the U.S. fails to raise the debt ceiling. But the base doesn’t live in the real world, so they just can’t understand what’s going on – what the HELL is the holdup? Why DON’T we just tell Obama to pound sand and never raise the debt ceiling again? It’s better than raising it, isn’t it? Isn’t that what the nice white guy from Fox News has been telling me, and why would he ever lie? DAMN it, Boehner! Get a move on, you liberal pussy!
And that’s the GOP’s problem in a nutshell: rhetoric has consequences. Rhetoric creates its own reality, and the people who believe it will pressure you to act as if you live in it even if you know better. Rock and a hard place.
Chris
I think the problem’s even more simple that a conflict between the GOP elites and the base – it’s a conflict between what the GOP has promised, and reality.
The GOP’s spent decades pumping so much crap into the national dialogue that we now have a population where a slim majority is more afraid of raising the debt ceiling than of not raising it – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of completely suicidal ideas that are now conventional wisdom.
The people are the top, like Boehner and his Wall Street masters, know it’s crap, and they know how bad things could get if the U.S. fails to raise the debt ceiling. But the base doesn’t live in the real world, so they just can’t understand what’s going on – what the HELL is the holdup? Why DON’T we just tell Obama to pound sand and never raise the debt ceiling again? It’s better than raising it, isn’t it? Isn’t that what the nice white guy from Fox News has been telling me, and why would he ever lie? DAMN it, Boehner! Get a move on, you fucking RINO!
And that’s the GOP’s problem in a nutshell: rhetoric has consequences. Rhetoric creates its own reality, and the people who believe it will pressure you to act as if you live in it even if you know better. Rock and a hard place.
stuckinred
bemused
I don’t think Al would be very good over the long haul.
travis
Shit. I was beginning to hope that the sociopaths would push the self destruct button so future civilizations would have a lesson to draw from. I have faith that humanity would be more evolved by then.
Villago Delenda Est
Frankly, the attitude of both the mainstream CoC GOP and the Teabaggers seems to have very little to do with the fostering of stability, and everything to do with making things as messy as possible so that individual advantage can be taken.
If they WERE interested in stability, they’d be happily sacrificing the health “insurance” industry on the altar of universal health care that will eventually profit all through lower health care costs, and increased productivity.
The Kochs, on the other hand, are interested in neo-feudalism. David Koch has been quoted that the problem with Obama is that he’s an egalitarian. Think about that for a moment, and what it says about Koch.
Actual conservatives are interested in making society more stable, more predictable, so that the status quo gains more and more defenders. If everyone is guaranteed a piece of the pie, they’re not going to be all that upset that someone gets a larger slice.
These guys, though, can’t stand the idea that anyone but them gets anything at all.
ESPECIALLY not those with melanin excess issues.
bemused
stuckinred
I’d have to agree but he has made me laugh out loud a few times while he’s been filling in. Can’t say the same for Cenk.
Chris
@ General Stuck,
This, also too. The fact that they’re more disciplined, sheep-like and loyal to the party masks the fact that they’re in it for a lot of different reasons, and that even if they’ll stick together at election time, they won’t necessarily do so when it comes to the issues.
Hence the Republicans trying to strangle the welfare state three times in recent history (1995, 2005 and now) and always finding that their support base actually likes them some Social Security and Medicare, even if they say otherwise. Hence the true believers trying to do lunatic things like not raise the debt ceiling, and finding that the big money that keeps the machine together actually wants the debt ceiling raised.
Putting some pressure on them to get the coalition to truly come apart – that’s the real trick, isn’t it? But their DFH-hatred runs so strong as to make it difficult to say the least.
tkogrumpy
With respect IMO this is an existential moment not for republicans but for America itself.So long as objectively insane people and their lunatic opinions are given equal weight with thoughtful knowledgeable experts we are doomed.
debbie
I liked Durbin’s comment about how all the Republicans seem to be able to do in a tough situation is walk out of the room.
sistermoon
I disagree. I listen to his radio show everyday on my way home from work. He regularly holds feet to the fire, and doesn’t let anyone get away with spouting talking points.
Besides, I often want to punch Cenk in his mouth.
bemused
Now Sharpton has Sheriff Arpaio on. Quite a freakoid guest lineup.
stuckinred
sistermoon
to each their own
HyperIon
Who has that much time?
bemused
sistermoon
Maybe I better find Sharpton on the radio if he’s like this all the time.
I second wanting to punch Cenk.
harlana
I love peas! :(
General Stuck
Grover sounds bitter, and maybe a little flaky
So Grover and Mcconnell throw up their hands in surrender and capitulate both the Senate and House power, delegating to Obama control over the debt ceiling to show him who’s boss and the big brain here. Fucking morons. And unconstitutional to boot.
Chris
This also too.
Linda Featheringill
catsy #51
why the mcconnell suggestion is a bad idea
1. McConnell really, really doesn’t want good things to happen for Obama and/or Democrats. He has only two political goals, keeping himself in office and kicking Obama out of office. Period.
2. This debt ceiling raising mechanism isn’t “clean” by a long shot. He [McC] wants Obama to have to came back every 3 months with hat in hand and beg for a new debt ceiling.
3. At that time, the Repubs will probably say, “Only if you offer X amount of cost reductions.”
4. He [McC] wants Obama to humbly submit suggested cost reductions. “Here, sir. Take away all the excess. Take away all the programs I believe in. Take away all the benefits that did help or would have helped my mother during lean times. Please sir.”
5. The plan has built-in whips to beat Obama with for having the audacity to ask for anything and then having the audacity to run for reelection and having the audacity to commit presidenting while black. Censure would be so easy it would almost be automatic. And negative advertising would be a given.
The plan was designed to keep McC in office while harassing and humiliating Barack Obama, whom he hates with a passion.
Of course, if McC did manage to keep Wall Street happy by raising the debt limit and keep the base happy by repeatedly and publicly humiliating Barack, he would be hailed as a hero by all Republicans everywhere.
Not going to happen, I don’t think. If I can see those traps, surely the White House can.
General Stuck
link for comment 76
HyperIon
Georgia Pig @28 (goddamn you, absent reply thingy):
No, all you need to remember is that McConnell has said repeatedly that defeating Obama is the most important thing in the entire fucking world.
He obviously thinks his “plan” will help reach that goal.
Linda @78: yes..but my version is shorter. ;=)
Suffern ACE
Jeebus. What do these guys do at the negotiating table all day? If they don’t have a sense of what the plan is, why don’t we just sell the capitol and do away with that whole separation of powers thing?
RossInDetroit
I still have a beef with Sharpton over Tawana Brawley. Yeah, it’s a long time ago but he was a real ass about what turned out to be fake rape claims. That kind of thing sticks in my craw.
HyperIon
RossInDetroit at 82 (goddamn you, absent reply thingy) wrote:
Time to move on.
Besides he’s changed his hair.
When did that happen?
aisce
@ jim c.
no, bloomberg is a lifelong corporate democrat who couldn’t appeal to working class black voters, so he switched parties so he could be mayor.
The Raven
I think I know the outcome. The Wall Street Republicans form a coalition with the conservative Democrats and the Tea Party Republicans and liberal Democrats get frozen out. This is, come to think of it, the same outcome I have been predicting since June of last year, post.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
Fortunately, President Obama’s morals are fiercely indestructible and matched only by his indomitable will. The last quarter inch of this man’s spine is surely made of titanium.
.
.
Jennifer
McConnell’s “plan” belongs stuck up his ass.
Obama’s response should be that the GOP is trying to shirk their governing responsibilities. They go to the voters, say “elect me because I’ll do X Y and Z,” and then when it’s time to do something hard, they say, “no, you figure it out and then run it past us.” Which also completely coincidently gives them a way to pretend that they had NOTHING at all to do with it.
Nope. Either you want to govern, or you don’t. If you don’t, don’t run for office.
And those should be the president’s EXACT words.
OzoneR
That and the Democratic primary was crowded while the GOP primary was not.
eric
I think Italy has a lot more to do with this than the Teabaggers. I think Worldwide Capital is very very nervous right now. The Euro is not in a happy place and America is the consumer engine that drives the world economy and it is dragging because we have chronic unemployment and deflated real assets while there is zero chance for keynsian stimulus. I think you are looking at McConnell trying to avoid a worldwide catastrophe and Grover knows that. he is anything but stupid. Cutting current spending right now at the levels it would take to do with the GOP wants would be suicidal for the world right now. I dont care what these pigs say, the world economy is in no place for childish games of chicken.
HyperIon
El Cid @45 (goddamn you, absent reply thingy) wrote:
So how is that going now anyway?
Are the crops being picked?
Another story that has apparently dropped off the radar.
I guess on some level I am asking: Was that story real? If so, how can it go away? Who’s picking the fucking crops?
Hawes
Feathergill, you’re misreading the McConnell plan about future concessions. The bill would increase the debt ceiling and only REFUSE to increase it at regular intervals with a 2/3rds vote.
What it seeks to do is place raising the debt ceiling squarely on the backs of the Democrats in Congress.
What McConnell is banking on is that anyone gives a fuck about raising the debt ceiling. This is cynical abdication of his responsibility (sic) to govern.
The fault line exposed here (as mentioned above) is between GOP rhetoric and reality. When the last of the Main Street Republicans were replaced by Gingrich revolutionaries and Teatard nihilists, they had Bush around as a brake – ironically. Now they are unfettered and saying all sorts of insane shit.
Forced to confront what this would actually mean, they have boxed themselves in. McConnell is trying to find an escape hatch.
This is abject surrender, disguised as a 30 second campaign spot.
harlana
Dammit, the president and his Sec’y of State giving peas a bad name.
NonyNony
@Jennifer
Now THAT I would love to see. “Look assholes, it’s YOUR job to create the budget. See here in this Constitution you all claim to love, let me read it to you … Now quit dicking around and trying to pass your responsibilities off onto other people.”
I’m just really not so sure why a plan endorsed by Mitch McConnell and Grover Norquist has people so excited. I can see being excited because McConnell just “blinked” and that Obama can use this as an opening to force a clean debt ceiling bill vote onto the table, but not for this actual deal, which is pretty much a turd sammich.
drkrick
Webb is the kind of conservadem from whom any useful vote after the leadership election is a complete bonus. He’s voting out of conviction, for what it’s worth.
Linda Featheringill
eric #90
World Capital
If you’re right [and you might well be], then perhaps the international fat cats will push for some kind of US govt jobs plan. Maybe some work on infrastructure or energy or something?
That would actually be good for us.
OzoneR
This is why I think McConnell’s idea is good for the GOP
http://www.gallup.com/poll/148454/Debt-Ceiling-Increase-Remains-Unpopular-Americans.aspx
They wash their hands of an unpopular policy.
Hawes
Jennifer @89
I think that’s the right tack to take.
“Abdication of responsibility” “Dereliction of duty.”
Love your line about “Don’t run for office.”
Obama said he wouldn’t do short-term debt ceiling increases, it would be interesting to see if he would accept this.
But it would be highly unlikely for him to call Banana Slug Face McConnell what he truly is: A coward unfit to govern.
General Stuck
Yup, what it looks like to me. With some ceremonial pomp and circumstance to signify Obama’s new purse power. The wingnuts have already forgotten the debt limit in their little lizard brains. This prey was just too much for them to bring home. So they are handing their ball to Obama, and skeedaddling . Pitiful, if you think about it too long.
NonyNony
@Hyperion
Last I heard – prisoners.
Hawes
Ozone @ 98
That polling drives me batshit.
It’s why I wanted Obama about a month ago to say, “No increase in the debt ceiling, no Social Security checks, no Medicare or Medicaid payments, no Veteran’s Benefits.”
If he had gotten to that point before today, we’d see a lot more support for raising the debt ceiling.
Not among Republicans, mind you. But among people with functioning brains.
eric
Linda at 97. They won’t because their profits are doing just fine. I just think we hit a destabilization point that could have cause catastrophic damage to the system as a whole — an economic Bay of Pigs if you will. World Capital is as much concerned with US regulation as it is with IS laws, and right now Obama controls regulation. They still want the teabaggers help in defeating Obama so they dont want a roaring economy, they just dont want economic oblivion French Revolution style.
HyperIon
NonyNony @101 (goddamn you, absent reply thingy) wrote:
Probationers actually. But that was almost 3 weeks ago and it is clear in the article that the probationers were not efficiently impersonating real migrant workers.
If folks don’t show up and pick the crops or if they leave at noon, this is a problem, no? So many things I do NOT understand about this world today!
OK, now I get it…from http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/07/03-2
On Monday, a judge temporarily blocked key parts of the law until a legal challenge is resolved. One provision that was blocked authorizes police to check the immigration status of suspects without proper identification. It also authorizes them to detain illegal immigrants. Another penalizes people who knowingly and willingly transport or harbor illegal immigrants while committing another crime.
NonyNony
@HyperIon
Apparently they’re just losing money:
And they want to create a new state-level guest worker program because the federal guest worker program is “too cumbersome”:
And apparently crop picking does not follow the rules of an unfettered free market:
I love that bit – “we can’t actually afford to pay people from our 1st world country to do the hard manual labor necessary to pick food, so we need to bring in people from a developing country to do it because to them this is good money”. Staggering really – perhaps the right answer is that you need to find a way to pay people more? And if you can’t afford to pay people a reasonable wage for the work they’re doing, perhaps we’re looking at a market where we need some sane subsidies to make sure the work gets done?
No fuck that – we just need some cheap-ass labor from South of the Border. That solves ALL of our problems!
The Raven
Linda Featheringill, #97: “If you’re right [and you might well be], then perhaps the international fat cats will push for some kind of US govt jobs plan. Maybe some work on infrastructure or energy or something?”
Historically, they have only given the non-fat-cats enough to get by. Still, I have little doubt that the managerial class which works for the fat cats is concerned about energy and the environment. This is the policy of the emergent coalition I see: poverty for most, but not complete immiseration. Still, this could change. Gandhi pointed out that capitalists are in the end human, and therefore reachable.
Todd Dugdale
The real question behind all of this is:
Does McConnell have the authority or ability to sell whatever deal he negotiates to his own Party?
We’ve already seen several Senators stake out positions in public. It’s hard to imagine what McConnell could say that would induce these Senators to walk back those positions.
Really, McConnell can’t afford to alienate very many Senators and he has no earmarks with which to sway their vote.
Obama might as well be negotiating a deal with tourists passing by the White House.
Chris
@ The Raven (and anyone else really),
Curiosity makes me ask: do you think they realize they’re doing it, or do they just not care? IE is it a conscious choice to keep the rest of the world as poor and dependant on their scraps as possible, or is it just a byproduct of their manic obsession with never shelling out more money than they absolutely have to, which just happens to lead to that without their noticing it, planning for it or caring?
It’s probably not a useful question in policy terms, it’s just something I’m wondering about.
bob h
The GOP is also undoubtedly hearing from VSP’s who have concluded that a new national Depression will not do their stock portfolios any good