So, I see this headline in the NYT:
Boehner Strikes Conciliatory Tone in Talk of Fiscal Cliff
Wow. Sounds great! Elections have consequences, and even leaders in the slash and burn House realize it. Yay!
And then I read the story:
The House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, striking a conciliatory tone a day after the Republican Party’s electoral drubbing, said on Wednesday that he was ready to accept a budget deal that raises federal revenue as long as it is linked to an overhaul of entitlements and a reform of the tax code that closes loopholes, curtails or eliminates deductions and lowers income tax rates.
…
Mr. Boehner made it clear that his vision for additional revenue includes a tax code that lowers even the top income tax rate from where it is now, 35 percent, not where it would be in January when the Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire — 39.6 percent. At least some of that additional revenue would come from economic growth that he said would be fueled by a simpler tax code.
Um, this was Romney’s plan. Lock, stock, and barrel. Cut tax rates across the board. Limit deductions. “Overhaul” (read: gut) entitlements. And dismiss deficit concerns through “dynamic scoring.”
So, just to be clear on what the NYT considers a “conciliatory tone”: Boehner less than 24 hours after the election is asking Obama to adopt, wholly, Mitt Romney’s economic plan.
How about, no?
redshirt
GFY Boner.
Short Bus Bully
Even the liberal NYT…
Rommie
You forgot “you crazy orange bastard!” heh
Suffern ACE
To avoid that, I counter with just not doing anything, letting everything expire, and getting extra revenue through a tax on pundits.
GregB
Keep on fucking that circus peanut John.
Viva BrisVegas
This is doing the rounds locally:
ROTFLMAO
Just out of curiosity, if Harry Reid actually did work up the courage to eliminate the filibuster, what effect does that have on Obama making appointments, up to and including the Supreme Court.
Anoniminous
Give 6/5 and pick ’em that alcoholic stumblebum isn’t going to be Speaker in the 213th Congress.
Violet
Boehner’s trying to protect his job. He’s looking over his shoulder and sees Cantor and knows Cantor’s got a knife.
jl
” How about, no? ”
Who will tell Boehner that?
Last election for Obama and he won it (unless he plans to pull a JQ Adams). So safe time to tell Obama to tell Boehner ‘no’.
No reason for excessive and uncritical Obot behavior any more.
SoINeedAName48
How about …
Baud
@Suffern ACE:
Not an value-added tax, however, because that wouldn’t generate any revenue.
Southern Beale
OMG yesssss a thousand times! I was screaming that exact thing at the TV when I saw that story come on tonight. Boehner and his smug little orange smirk. Swear to GOD I am not going through this same old bait-and-switch thing with the media dragging the country to doing what the GOP wanted to do all along and calling it “bipartisanship.” Fuck. Bipartisanship is not, do the Republican plan.
khead
How about hell fucking no? I heard some of his press conference on the radio. Conciliatory is certainly not the word I would use…..
the Conster
@GregB:
LOL
Violet
@Suffern ACE: Pundit tax! Love it! Alternatively, pundits should be required to back up their predictions with a bet/donation to charity, like Nate Silver challenged Joe Scarborough to do. Charities would be happy.
Violet
@jl: I really hope we see an Obama who just doesn’t give a fuck about playing nice. He’s not running for reelection. He can tell the wingnuts to fuck off.
cathyx
I hope Obama doesn’t cave.
Baud
@cathyx:
What would you consider a cave?
28 Percent
@Viva BrisVegas: linky?
There’s only six weeks left before Christmas break, even the people who know what the fiscal cliff is don’t expect that there’s time to do anything about it until after Jan 20. So buh-bye to the Bush cuts and let’s get on with the Air Force bake sales.
Gravenstone
@Violet:
This, absolutely. And if there’s any justice in the world, he’s hearing this every time he closes his eyes.
Cacti
If you don’t want republican gerrymandered house districts…
Don’t sit out elections in a census year.
sigh
Schlemizel
Somewhere today, it might have been here, there was discussion about how O should be conciliatory and give the GOP a reach
aroundacross. I said no then and will join the choirs of OH GADDAMM FUCKING HELL NO WAY IN HELL NO! right now.WE have to have Dems call them out on this bullshit each and every time. Hammer home the idea that while the goopers say “compromise” and offer “alternatives” they are all about do it my way or we burn it down.
Either that or dine in tire rims and anthrax
cathyx
@Baud: Any of this crap:
A budget deal that raises federal revenue as long as it is linked to an overhaul of entitlements (Social Security and Medicare) and a reform of the tax code that closes loopholes, curtails or eliminates deductions and lowers income tax rates that hurt the 99%.
Yutsano
@Viva BrisVegas: I’d offer to put her on a plane, but I would never subject y’all to our wonderful wingnuts. The voyage of self-discovery would be illuminating.
Schlemizel
@Cacti:
Don’t EVER sit out an election, not never, not once. School board? Soil & water Conservation District, dog catcher? Don’t skip a single one because the fucking teatards will not & they will find a way to damage your world once they get in
Hal
Five times I’ve found myself starting to reply to one moron or another on Facebook with their doomsday scenario bullshit, and then I thought, fuck it, we won. The I watch the South Park clip of Cartman drinking bitter tears and decide it’s just not worth it…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owzhYNcd4OM
dmsilev
@28 Percent: Less time than that, even. The new Congress gets sworn in right after New Year’s Day.
jl
@Violet:
” I really hope we see an Obama who just doesn’t give a fuck about playing nice. ”
Don’t hope, just get on his case about it.
I view Obama as a moderate conservative corporate Democrat who is liberal on social issues, with a number of dangerous and mistaken corporate Democratic ideas about economics.
Obama might say ‘yes’ to some Boehner’s nonsense because he thinks they are good ideas, or so so ideas that can be compromised into something acceptable. (Edit: but Boehner’s ideas, none of them, are acceptable in any fashion)
I suppose supporters had to soft peddle his (edit: Obama’s) weakness during campaign, but no reason to now.
But I am cranky. Before precinct walking last night, I damn well phone banked on election night for Obama. Jeez, that is GOTV work I do hate with passion. Barry and Joe owe me for three plus hours of phone bank purgatory, dammit, and I will remind them.
Just Some Fuckhead
Look, Obama won by 192 electoral votes in 2008 and he’ll win by a 100 or more this time. That’s clearly the electorate crying out to do whatever Republicans want. I don’t know how you can read it any other way.
PeakVT
@Viva BrisVegas: Everything becomes easier without the filibuster because it is being used to block everything, including non-controversial nominees for non-critical jobs.
General Stuck
That’s okay, Obama has them over a barrel and they know it, with all the leverage and now an election stamp of approval for PBO. With no election to win, Obama can go either way with the Bush tax cuts and it is no sweat off his back.
Boehner’s empty posturing is impotent fapping, until he gets a reading how the wind will blow with the senate goopers and the non tea tard part of his house caucus. As far as the fiscal cliff, that only has meaning until the economy gets into a more robust rebound, and flips the Keynesian model toward longer term deficit reduction with raising taxes less problematic for loss of that spending power with the public. The rich tax cuts are all but worthless as stimulus, being money that won’t be spent by the already wealthy, and if the nutters won’t go for splitting the lower income Bush tax cuts, then they will both expire and republicans can face middle class voters on that score.
As far as military spending goes, the only fiscal cliff that should be in play, are the profits of some MIC plutocrats, and over time, maybe some jobs as well over time. The sequestered cash cuts can be made to impact jobs less, I suppose, but Obama could well use that money to extract more from the wingnuts. Unless the House republicans decide to bring it all down for spite, and I don’t expect them to do that. At least enough of them.
As far as cutting SS bennies. Not going to happen. But I do support means testing medicare for the wealthy, as these programs are so popular, republicans trying to demonize them as welfare programs won’t get very far with the public. But it has to also come with lifting or raising the FICA cap to generate more revenue for medicare.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Hal: Hal, drop me an email and I’ll friend ya and you can share a post I wrote today specifically to those mouthbreathers.
Todd
Interesting thing, the House.
In races which are statewide, the trend is clearly toward the center-left/center. House districts, being so gerrymandered, have a substantial conservative tilt.
2030 is going to be a sad fucking year for white folks. There will be a great reaping of he whirlwind, district-wise.
Schlemizel
@Yutsano:
It would be fun to have the peawit take a camera and film a meeting between it and the PM. I’d almost kick in $20 if I thought they would do it,
smith
Obama doesn’t have to worry about running for re-election so I’m hoping he tells the weeping tan master to go fuck himself in the nicest way possible.
@Viva BrisVegas:
She deleted her twitter account already. I guess getting called a moron by thousands of people shattered her sheltered bubble.
jwb
@Violet: I don’t think Cantor wants the job. It’s often easier to exercise power in the House when you are not Speaker (think Tom Delay). But Cantor may well want someone other than Boehner to be Speaker.
Southern Beale
So, where’s the secret GOP obstructionist planning meeting this year? Anyone check with Luntz?
Ooops, wrong blog …
{ kidding, obv }
Violet
@jl: I agree, we need to stay organized and make sure we let the President and our other elected Representatives know what we want them to do. Teabaggers aren’t afraid of phoning their reps. We can do it too.
I loved the posts and organization we had here to phone our reps for the health care fight. We can do that with other stuff. Just need to get started.
Does anyone who’s involved with OFA know if they’ve got plans to use that people power for other things?
Baud
@cathyx:
Ok, thanks. I expect there will be some deal, but Boehner’s posturing means nothing to me.
James K. Polk, Esq.
I got stuck in the mother of all traffic jams on the way home from work today, and subjected myself to Nice Polite Republicans for two fucking hours. Many moons ago, that would have been delightful. Now, it was like sandpapering my eyeballs.
They couldn’t stop talking about how willing the GOP was to work with their opposition and then played the Boner statement about not raising revenues.
I FEEL LIKE I’M TAKING CRAZY PILLS.
jl
@Violet:
I guess we need get on their case about that too, though I am not sure the beat way to about that or whose case to get on about it. Maybe we should ask Kay.
I worked mostly for local House and stat leg races since that is best way to have impact in swing districts in CA doing door knocking, so not that familiar with how Obama people do things, except they are super organized. No reason not to use them for good after the election, assuming Obama and Dem brass want to.
Suffern ACE
I think we should think about organizing to let the reps know that we are not on board. But I fear it will be healthcare all over again, where it becomes very clear that we don’t have a consensus as to what we want.
Baud
@Suffern ACE:
Also, what you want, what it makes sense to ask for in an opening offer, and what you’re willing to settle for are often three different things.
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
This is why Democrats have such trouble getting things throgh Congress. Whatever Republicans do, whetever Republicans do, the press will tell us that they’re behaving “reasonably” and “seriously”. And whatever Democrats do, whatever they do, the press will tell us that they “won’t compromise” and they’re “overly partisan”. Some Republican in Congress could open up with a machine gun on the Demcratic side, and I’d be amazed if the New York Times or the Washington Post or NPR would have anything critical to say about it. But if a Democrat so much as farts withing hearing of a Republican, and it’s Chicago in 1968 all over again. And readers and watchers and listeners listen to and read this shit, and they believe it. And I bet that a lot of these people call and write their congressmen and senators and parrot this shit back to them.
And, yes, I know that too many Democrats in Congress fall for this crap. But, to be fair, it must be hard when this bullshit washes over them every day, every damned day. And that’s why I think that reforming the press is one of the biggest job, maybe the biggest job, we have ahead of us. Al Franken, in one of his books said that the press–whatever conservatives say–doesn’t have a liberal bias. It has lots of other biases; one of the biggest, he says, and it’s dead on, is the bias toward laziness. Anothere is the bias toward their friends whose parties they go to, many of whom are the very congressmen they write about. And I’d bet anything that the parties that Mitch McConnell and John Boner and Karl Rove throw are far more appealing to these press suckups than the parties that Bernie Sanders most likely doesn’t throw.
I’ve beaten this dead horse before, but really, getting a better press is one of the biggest undertakings we liberals need to find some way to make happen.
The Moar You Know
I brought up the unpleasant fact this morning that, due to our failure to retake the House, that President Obama wasn’t going to have any choice but to negotiate and compromise with the House, as they’re the ones who have to write the spending bills, and in addition to that, they have the big gun of default, if they’re desperate enough to go there.
This is not exactly what I had in mind. Boehner’s going to have to give some up some biggies. So will Obama. But negotiation defined as “give me everything I want and you can take a flying fuck” is not how this is going to get done. However, McConnell pretty much signaled this morning that they’re pretty ok with the last two years and they’re ready to keep doing nothing.
Pretty sure the House forces a default this winter. And, as with the 1996 shutdown, doing this to a second-term president is beyond stupid, as Obama doesn’t have to worry about re-election and can just sit on his hands and wait while the House switchboards get jammed 24/7.
Shakespeare
Obama has wanted his Grand Bargain since 2009.
Not up for re-election, he has no motivation now to appease his base.
I predict he will trade unneeded Social Security cuts and Medicare cuts for tax cuts on the wealthy.
We will garment-rend, to no effect.
Obama has said he wanted this long before the Tea Party. And now he will get it.
Jay in Oregon
@James K. Polk, Esq.:
I’d be willing to work with people who gave me whatever I wanted, too.
Randy P
@Violet: He’s not running for reelection.
But the Congressional Democrats are. And I hope they realize the lesson of 2010: We don’t want them to play nice with Republicans either.
gbear
@Violet: @Violet:
This was one of the exact topics under discussion on Fresh Air this evening. Terry Gross was interviewing Norm Ornstein. The bit I listened to in the car was interesting.
PsiFighter37
I hope Barack tells Orange Julius to stick it where the sun don’t shine and to enjoy the shiv Eric’s got waiting for him.
That said, I have a creeping feeling that Barack is going to try and play nice first. He’s gotta play hardball from the get-go and act like the campaign has never ended.
Mnemosyne
I guess anything short of “Up yours, nigger” counts as “conciliatory” to the NY Times.
Honestly, I’m not too worried about Obama in this situation. It’s the weak-kneed and conservative Dems in the House and Senate we have to worry about because, if history is any guide, those assholes are going to leave the president all alone out there if he proposes anything even slightly progressive, like an increase in the FICA tax cap. We need to be prepared to flood our Reps and Senators with faxes and letters when the president announces his plans.
And for the Geithner-haters, remember that for months the rumor has been that Geithner wants to leave and the administration would have been happy to accept his resignation, but the Republicans announced that they would refuse to confirm any new nominee. Geithner himself says that he will not serve a second term, so start pushing now for your dream nominee.
Anton Sirius
The left needs to start working the refs the way the right does. If Jonathan Weisman (@jonathanweisman) and every other media motherfucker gets bombarded with emails and tweets every time they act as Boehner’s stenographer, they might begin to do their jobs for a change.
It can’t hurt, anyway. At the very least it’ll allow us to vent.
jl
@Shakespeare:
Might be true. Need to scare the shit out of our respective Congresscritters, and where possible, Senator Snorts and Snortatrices
jwb
@The Moar You Know: Obama has lots of defenses against default, which were developed in the last fight but not used. Pretty sure he’s willing to use them this time. And I also think he’s perfectly willing to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire and have the GOP House stew in its own sweat for several months if need be. I have noticed that he’s shown little concern for the upcoming deadline and that the Senate Dems have been leading the charge for playing tough on the tax cuts. That makes me think the Dems have a strategy already laid out, and it was laid out by the campaign team.
Baud
@Mnemosyne:
I’m also more worried about Congress than Obama. But Obama has some strong allies now with Warren and a reelected Brown, and Pelosi still leads the House Dems, so I’m fairly confident.
Steve
I understand the logic of how tax cuts are supposed to increase revenues. It doesn’t actually work, but at least I understand the logic. But I didn’t understand during the campaign, and I still don’t understand, how revenue-neutral simplification of the tax code is supposed to stimulate the economy. Is it like, I don’t need to spend as long filling out my tax return, so I have time to go hire people?
jl
@Mnemosyne:
‘ I guess anything short of “Up yours, nigger” counts as “conciliatory” to the NY Times. ‘
It would be conciliatory albeit expressed in ‘colorful language’ characteristic of the antics of nicotine fiend and wino House Speakers, and Speakers have long been an irascible bunch of characters (gotta throw in a little historical perspective, if you are a high brow paper).
Mnemosyne
@PsiFighter37:
Depends on what you mean by “playing nice.” Obama managed to get the Republicans to agree to a bogus “debt deal” that included a bunch of cuts that the administration had previously proposed to things they already wanted to cut or were coming to a natural end (like the Census).
Also, people really need to pay attention to Obama’s entire sentences when he speaks. I remember there was a whole fucking freakout when Obama referred to Jamie Dimon as “one of the good guys” after JP Morgan announced they had accidentally lost $4 billion. I spent a lot of time trying to point out to people that what Obama actually said was that if “one of the good guys” could fuck up that badly, that only proved that we need more and better regulations to prevent them from doing it. But, nope, Obama used the phrase “good guy” in relation to Evil Jamie Dimon, so the entire point of what Obama was actually fucking saying had to be ignored so we could all focus on how Obama threw lefties under the bus by uttering a single phrase.
General Stuck
@Shakespeare:
No he hasn’t. What he has always said is that SS is just fine and doesn’t need anything right now. He doesn’t have to do anything to raise revenue, as the Bush tax cuts go away Jan 1 2013. The reason we are talking about medicare and open to shoring that up, is because it needs more shoring up, and the wingnuts want it on the table. But Obama has all along been profoundly opposed to any and all SS or Medicare benefits cuts. Simply acknowledging various options that involves indirect cuts like tinkering with the COLA equation and raising the retirement age, are just proforma statements.
Baud
@Steve:
The theory is all about lowering the top marginal tax rate on investments to stimulate investment. In the GOP view, if you have low marginal tax rates on investments, you can raise tax other things (wages, closing loopholes) to make up for the revenue and still be better off economically.
1badbaba3
Perhaps I missed the memo that said we should be very afraid of the annoying Orange, bitchface Cantor, and their amazingly impressive list of accomplishments. Look out, Barry, they might break out the comfy chair. Oo’er.
Mike G
@Viva BrisVegas:
Thermonuclear FAIL.
Aside from the presumption that she voted for a Mormon over a Christian, Australia has an atheist woman as Prime Minister (not President), and she would find it “socialist” (by the retarded Fox News definition) in many respects.
It’s not just stupid – it’s Southern Republican stupid. She is now the laughingstock of an entire continent.
danielx
Shorter Boehner:
Just act like you lost the election instead of winning it, and everything will be fine. Nice little recovery you got going here, be a shame to have something happen to it.
Also, too – never forget this is a center right nation, I don’t care how many elections you’ve won.
Mike Lamb
Someone already fell for Lucy pulling the football out from Charlie Brown? I mean, we’re less than 24 hours removed from Boehner claiming that the House remaining in GOP hands was a “mandate” against raising any taxes.
JGabriel
__
__
Bernard Finel @ Top:
Here’s what I think the President’s response should be:
.
Mike Lamb
@Mike G: Tell you what…I’ve been trying to figure out a way to move to Australia just because I love the country after studying abroad there in the late 90’s. If this functional fucking retard finds a way to get there, I’m gonna be pissed.
Camchuck
Boener began his speech today by saying they want to model tax reform after the 1986 tax reform act.:
Yeah, post election GOP, same as the old GOP.
Baud
@JGabriel:
This. Pissed-off voters above all want someone to blame. Obama’s basically untouchable because of term limits, so voters will turn against the GOP if the dysfunction continues.
jl
@Mike G: Maybe Australian free market miracle medicine will make up for the atheist woman
presidentPM.smith
@Mike Lamb:
I don’t think you need to worry. She probably couldn’t find Australia on a map if you took away the other countries and wrote AUSTRALIA on the remaining country in big neon lettering.
Mister Harvest
Speaker? You can have my answer now, if you like.
srv
Give us out tax and entitlement cuts or we’ll default on the debt.
The reasonable person will cave.
Litlebritdifrnt
I will repeat what Sully said last night. “You have a black man with power with nothing to lose”. POTUS doesn’t have to run for reelection, he is done, he can do what the fuck he wants in the next four years and solidify his legacy.
Oh and as someone in the comments said today in 2016 we will have Obama and Clinton stumping for the Democratic candidate, how fucking awesome is that? (Personally I hope it is Hillary)
srv
@JGabriel:
Ha. Funniest post on the internets tonight
Bruce S
“Conciliation” in today’s GOP means they’ve decided not to go for impeachment. Hell, as “mainstream” a GOPer pundit as Mary Matalin called the President a “sociopath” in the wake of his re-election. Mega-grifter Donald Trump was tweeting stuff that sounded like Bill Ayers circa ’68 last night. When the FOXoid, activist, celebrity grifter and online blowhard elite is feeding the base garbage about secession, revolution and lynching Chris Christie, Boehner does in fact sound like a “conciliatory moderate.” Of course, the only proper response to this is “Shove it up your ass, Johnny Boy.”
Anne Laurie
@Viva BrisVegas: True story: Forty years ago, my first college roommate (a lovely young woman from Iron Mountain, Michigan, a very rural area) admitted that until she was 17, she’d thought that Australia was an imaginary country, like Oz. She only learned the truth when Quantas started advertising on television!
So America’s Yoot is getting more globally sophisticated… incrementally.
(You’re welcome.)
Frankensteinbeck
As I said last time this came up, Obama will continue to smile and talk sweetly and stick a knife in the GOP’s back every time. His standard tool for doing this is to give them everything they publicly ask for and nothing they actually want, but you know, he’s a clever guy and he has any number of ways of running Speaker Tang in circles.
Also, I can’t believe the dumbass ‘Obama is going to gut the safety net’ theme is back. At what point do we declare that anyone who believes this, like a Birther, is automatically too oblivious to reality to be worth talking to?
redshirt
@Mike Lamb: Become a Chef. Apparently – get this – Australia imports Chefs from America. Not sure why, but it’s anecdotal fact.
Crashman
@Frankensteinbeck: To quote Adam Serwer quoting Omar: “You come at the king, you best not miss.”
matt
Go to hell, New York Times, can’t we have a break from asinine propaganda for one day?
hitchhiker
@Frankensteinbeck:
This!
I would like it, though, if the president’s team would put some of their savvy to work on making sure the public KNOWS about it when they win, KNOWS about it when they pull off a little double-cross and get what they want while giving away nothing.
Example: during that deal in which Obama extended all the tax cuts, when he squeezed them for a second stimulus. Krauthammer actually figured it out.
Dec, 2010:
Sounds just about right.
trollhattan
Maybe folks more adult than I have tired of wingnut post-Obama II manifestos, but I’m still feasting. Farley at LGM found this nugget.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2012/11/i-accept-your-terms-sir#comments
Have come to realize that being “Libertarian” means being twelve FOREVER. That would be cool, right?
arguingwithsignposts
Well, I see it’s been less than 24 hours and already Obama has failed us by giving away the entire New Deal because he didn’t bully pulpit enough. What’s next, Obummer?
(sarcasm after reading this thread)
Felonius Monk
I think it is ass kickin’ time and Boner’s posterior is Target #1 —– Hey, Boner —INCOMING!
PeakVT
This may have been posted already: Media Matters details Rubin’s hackery.
redshirt
@trollhattan: My Father cancelled Xmas rather than have to face me, essentially. Hilarious! And so sadly petty.
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
Of course it is — it means you can stomp around being petty while your parents are forced to support you because you’re too young to be thrown out of the house. Win win!
Also, I can’t be the only one who suspects this dude doesn’t have a wife or girlfriend or even a friend with benefits, right?
Jay in Oregon
@trollhattan:
There are some top-quality WATBs on the right. That rant was a thing of beauty. If Eric Dondero is as much of a fucking tosser in general as he came across in that post, I suspect the number of people he’ll have to unfriend on FB ranks in single digits.
And his next plan is to go around being a loudmouthed, obnoxious, fuckwitted asshole to everyone he meets? And wearing BUTTONS! Oh yeah, that’ll show us!
What a waste of oxygen that one is. FFS.
Bruce S
@trollhattan:
This boycott by Libertarians/Republicans sounds like a good deal. Hope it spreads.
Jay in Oregon
@redshirt:
Your father cancelled Christmas??? That monster!
Felonius Monk
Read somewhere a little while ago that the big money guys that bankrolled the latest repugs Titanic voyage with their hundreds of millions $ are demanding the the current Republican leadership resign from their leadership positions including their leaders in the House and Senate.
I think Rove may have a bounty on his head — after all he pissed away close to $400 mil with no tangible results.
Adelson is pissed, the Koch-suckers are pissed.
Let the fun begin!
Jay in Oregon
@trollhattan:
I’m re-reading that GBCW post from Eric Dondero. So many tasty morsels in it:
WINNING!
Ruckus
How about, no?
How about, no motherfucking way, asshole?
Less grace, more realism.
redshirt
@Jay in Oregon: It was Festivus, technically, but actually served the same function as Xmas, which is like quadruply ironic, or more.
jayackroyd
@efgoldman: I don’t see any way to count to 51 senators willing to eliminate the filibuster. There are too many Dems who hide behind it–to avoid tough votes. But Reid could change it–make it 55 or 57 votes, or make them actually filibuster, or I think it was Merkley who wanted the cloture vote count to be time dependent.
It doesn’t matter, really–the Senate really operates on custom more than rule, so the question really is can pressure be put on the class of 2014 to 1) stop the collaboration (on the D side) by threatening primaries and 2) stop the obstruction, by fielding solid opponents.
Class of 2014.
Baucus, Max (D-MT)
Begich, Mark (D-AK)
Coons, Christopher (D-DE)
Durbin, Richard J. (D-IL)
Franken, Al (D-MN)
Hagan, Kay R. (D-NC)
Harkin, Tom (D-IA)
Johnson, Tim (D-SD)
Kerry, John F. (D-MA)
Landrieu, Mary L. (D-LA)
Lautenberg, Frank R. (D-NJ)
Levin, Carl (D-MI)
Merkley, Jeff (D-OR)
Pryor, Mark L. (D-AR)
Reed, Jack (D-RI)
Rockefeller, John D., IV (D-WV)
Shaheen, Jeanne (D-NH)
Udall, Mark (D-CO)
Udall, Tom (D-NM)
Warner, Mark R. (D-VA)
Alexander, Lamar (R-TN)
Chambliss, Saxby (R-GA)
Cochran, Thad (R-MS)
Collins, Susan M. (R-ME)
Cornyn, John (R-TX)
Enzi, Michael B. (R-WY)
Graham, Lindsey (R-SC)
Inhofe, James M. (R-OK)
Johanns, Mike (R-NE)
McConnell, Mitch (R-KY)
Risch, James E. (R-ID)
Roberts, Pat (R-KS)
Sessions, Jeff (R-AL)
Lavocat
How about “FUCK YOU!” with a boot placed so far up the Republicans’ collective asses that it tickles their liver-spotted prostates!
Wake up and smell the schadenfreude, MOTHERFUCKERS!
jon
I still can’t buy the GOP sales job that entitlements are great for old people but horrible for women, the young, and the poor. “Fuck you, I’ve got mine!” just failed at the ballots, and the President knew it all along. As for financing the government, I say let the sequestration and the fiscal cliff hit, let the GOP howl, and wait until March to start negotiating. After a few other things are done, such as voting on the backlog of judges and a few jobs bills.
chopper
ugh. O knows boner is the only option he has to get anything done, at least compared to cantor. boner can be rolled, cantor’s just going to tell O to eat a dick, repeatedly.
this move is boner just showing off for his caucus, telling them he’s still got some fight in him. dunno how the GOP is going to get around the cliff coming up.
chopper
@redshirt:
he was really afraid of where the airing of grievances would end up this year.
pluege
what the NYT considers a “conciliatory tone”: Boehner less than 24 hours after the election is asking Obama to adopt, wholly, Mitt Romney’s economic plan.
the sad part is that its probably where obama is headed.
Its great that we didn’t get romney and all the hell that would have unleashed, but its not all that much relief to have to go for a center-right republican as the alternative.
mds
@jwb:
How about Paul Ryan? He’s a spoiled thin-skinned sociopathic liar who’s not nearly as smart as he thinks he is, so he’d be easy for someone savvier to lead around by the nose. The Village wouldn’t be able to contain their noisy orgasms over such a “smart” guy willing to make the “tough” decisions while “compromising” with Democrats … and if it doesn’t work, then he’s pre-emptively torpedoed before his 2016 presidential run. Also, I’ve used up my daily quota of quotation marks.
Tiredofitall
The puppet show is about to begin. There will be no negotiations. Democrats will blame Republicans and Republicans will blame Democrats, and the citizens will blame each other’s Party and they’ll run out and occupy, and rally, and protest, and demonstrate, and be at each other’s throats, hating on their fellow Americans, and when all is said and done the politicians on both sides of the aisle will walk in lock-step together to the nearest liquor bottle to toast themselves on a job well done and to toast the stupidity of the citizens. Wake up, America. No Party is for us.