Nobody could have anticipated that the compromise bill would die in John Boehner’s clown show caucus.
Lawmakers said that Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 Republican, indicated to his colleagues in a closed-door meeting in the basement of the Capitol that he could not support the legislation in its current form. Many other Republicans were voicing stiff objections to a plan that they saw as raising taxes while doing little to rein in spending. Several conservatives assailed it on the House floor as the chamber convened at noon for an unusual New Year’s Day session.
The aides said that Speaker John A. Boehner, who had pledged to put any measure the Senate passed on the House floor for a vote, was mainly listening to the complaints of his rank and file and had not taken a firm position on the legislation, though he had clear reservations.
As the article points out, Boehner’s caucus can either kill the bill by passing on a vote or they can kill it by passing some amended version with some Cantor-approved poison pills to keep it in conference until Thursday noon. It is hard to imagine how Boehner will talk his caucus into voting for a bill ten miles to the left of his Plan B.
By now everyone understands that House Republicans just cannot handle the minimum tasks of running a country. It is time to walk away from this mess and negotiate something from scratch with the next Congress.
cokane
needs a hoocoodanode tag
Viper
Why do you think we would negotiate from scratch? Just like every other failed Obama negotiation, this bad deal becomes the baseline for the Democrats to move further to the right. Ugh!
Anya
Off the cliff we go!
chris
I sincerely think this was what Obama was trying to set up with the “compromise.” He is out to destroy John Boehner and the tea party caucus. He may succeed.
Alex S.
I think this result was part of Obama’s calculation. The deal was not that bad. It doesn’t sink his presidency even if his base has some problems with it, BUT: he probably knew that the GOP house will not accept it, and that gives him enough ammunition to campaign against them in 2014.
piratedan
weak sauce from the Republicans as usual… oh they want to go after entitlements all right, those nefarious subsidies paid to your Aunt Myrtle and Uncle Milton that keep ’em out of a cardboard box under the interstate overpass. Those benefits that keep crazy cousin Cliff seeing his therapist and case worker. Those moochers on the government teat.
But thou shalt not touch those entitlements to Big Oil, Big Guns and Big Pharma because, well… jobs jobs jobs, because those taxpayer subsidies go to hire old Republican legislators who get voted out of office who are unlucky enough to not grab a hold of a Fox News sinecure because they can’t put together a cogent thought on camera.
Priorities, priorities, priorities
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
So what kind of negotiations do you think will occur next Congress, with a weaker Boehner who believes that he has to appeal to a majority of the House Republicans to get a bill through?
Remember, there is one party that believes that crippling government and the poor is the best thing for this country.
ETA: Maybe Obama can start talking to Cantor.
Mr Stagger Lee
@Anya: Geronimo!! Geronimo!!
Look Out Below!!! Look Out Below!!
Baud
@chris:
I’ve thought that with past “offers”, but not this time. I think this is the House GOP committing suicide, not being murdered.
ETA: Edited for clarity.
@Viper:
Actually, Boehner begged Obama to offer up the 2011 Grand Bargain, and Obama said no. So we may well end up negotiating from scratch. It depends on the public and Wall Street now.
PurpleGirl
@cokane: Yes, that makes sense; however, the rotating tags have been missing for a while now. When do we get the rotating tags back?
pat
Is this when Obama can raise the debt ceiling all on his own?
Jay C
BTW, is there much (any?) likelihood that the new 113th Congress (who takes over on, what? Thursday?) will be more likely to actually, y’know, want to DO something about the tax issues? Or are the teahadis still going to cling to their “principles”, public outrage be d*mned…?
PS: All the media jabber about the “fiscal cliff” BS seems to take it for granted that upon the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, the overall rates will be going back up: in perpetuity – is there any (legal or legislative) reason why Congress can’t just simply pass a agreeable tax bill later on, and make it retroactive to the start of the year?
cmorenc
@chris:
It would indeed be wonderful if the Biden/Senate deal turns out to be a brilliant chess gambit that ends up checkmating the teahadist GOP faction in the House rather than a successful gambit by the teahadist GOP faction to substantially dilute the Senate deal and strengthen their position in the upcoming debt ceiling issue.
The Dangerman
@chris:
After redistricting, the GOP and TP (how appropriate) are just about bulletproof. Boehner could go down (how inappropriate), but that’s probably not going to happen, either.
PurpleGirl
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
But will Cantor talk with Obama?
Grumpy Code Monkey
It is now clear that the Tea Party does not give a crap about the deficit. They don’t care about cutting taxes. They don’t even really care about looting the Treasury.
The Tea Party has one overriding goal – to punish poor Americans. Period. They want to completely dismantle every New Deal and Great Society program, not because of any great philosophical position about the extent of Federal power, but because they are simply mean sons-of-bitches who want to make the poor suffer. Bonus points if those poor people aren’t white.
That’s it .
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@chris:
@Alex S.:
I don’t think so. I think Obama was trying to get through a deal that would help as many people as possible. No unemployment benefits, higher taxes on middle and lower class, AMT affecting more of the middle class. This austerity is going to wreak havoc on the economy.
At best, he might have had the idea in mind that it not passing would further cripple the Republicans. What he was probably not expecting was for the House to go that far against the Senate Republicans.
Imagine if LBJ had not had Rayburn in the House.
geg6
Well, if I could see this coming a mile away, I have no doubt that Obama and his team did, too. Jeebus. These fuckers are really itching for that Second Civil War. They are seditionists, every one of them.
The only good news here is that not even an idiot on the level of Luke Russert can now ignore what these people are. And McConnell is shitting himself. He is now persona non grata with the Teahadis and WILL be primaried. Could we soon see Senator Ashley Judd?
RepubAnon
Hopefully, President Obama’s next press conference will feature a “the Republicans need to name someone with the authority to negotiate a deal.”
On the bright side of things – it did pass the Senate, robbing Republicans of their “Democrats haven’t passed anything” talking point. (My guess is that the Republicans knew that if they filibustered this bill, it would give the Democrats additional incentives to reform the filibuster – so they had a deal with the House to kill it there…)
mai naem
Ofcourse Cantor’s against it. No doubt he’s got some money in his campaign bank account shorting the market. He’s done it before. It would be irresponsible not to speculate that he’s doing the same thing again.
geg6
Well, if I could see this coming a mile away, I have no doubt that Obama and his team did, too. Jeebus. These fuckers are really itching for that Second Civil War. They are seditionists, every one of them.
The only good news here is that not even an idiot on the level of Luke Russert can now ignore what these people are. And McConnell is shitting himself. He is now persona non grata with the Teahadis and WILL be primaried. Could we soon see Senator Ashley Judd? Heh. That would be weird.
Comrade Jake
While I believe Obama actually wanted this to pass, I do wonder if he wasn’t at least partially taunting the GOP yesterday in his presser.
No matter. The teahadists can set the country ablaze and the MSM will still blame both sides – just wait.
Valdivia
Put this in the other thread but worth reading Douchehat’s Twitter feed to see just hoe fucking ridiculous the excuses are now. Just shoot me now.
Cermet
@efgoldman: Your math is way off – you forget that for each vote that changes side, the net result is reduced by two, not one. If the new congress has 201 dems, and 234 thugs, only 18 people switching from thugs allows the dems to win: 201 + 18(thugs switch) = 219 vs. 234(all the thugs) – 18 = 216. In a similar manner, your other number is incorrect.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@PurpleGirl: I’m just thinking in terms of ripping Boehner’s heart out. I’m sure Cantor would as long as cameras are allowed so he can yell and point his finger at the blah man. In private, I suspect Cantor doesn’t know how to ask for a free pen from the President.
Bruce S
I’m pissed because all of that vitriol was wasted in the last thread over nothing.
Ruckus
@Jay C:
Laws are not etched in stone. They can be changed, added to, eliminated by future congresses. What is law now is not the end all.
How easy or hard that is is a different story.
But that is why discussions about how good or bad the future 40 yrs out is really such bullshit. Think back to 1999, then compare to 2009. Did anyone say we would be coming(very slowly and badly) out of the worst recession in history?
Hungry Joe
Inevitably, Obama/the Dems will have to give some stuff up because, as much as we may hate it, and as nutso as the GOP may be, they’re the majority in the House. We rail at them when they call compromise “treason,” but don’t we pretty much do the same thing? “Obama sold us out!” “The Dems have no backbone!”
The wingnut GOP has the House, and they’re going to get some of what they want. It’s as simple (and as awful) as that.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@PurpleGirl:
I think he would sing like a soprano, with the right grip on a central body part.
Gin & Tonic
@geg6:
Wanna bet?
Percysowner
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Well if Boehner is re-elected Speaker of the House, he may feel freer to put a bill to an up or down vote before the House. I hope it won’t be THIS bill. If they can’t get this passed, then I want the Dem’s to insist on ending the debt ceiling at the very least. I hope they dump the sequestration requirement. But they can’t just come back with this bill again. The House GOP needs to have some consequences for not being willing to compromise. And the President needs to be on TV constantly reminding people the it is the GOP that refuses to allow the country to function.
Well I just heard Steve LaTourett who retired from the House because he didn’t think anything could get done, go on and on about how the Repubs won’t pass the bill because there are no cuts to the budget. So the next one should have all the cuts come from the military budget. Screw them, if the want to play let’s destroy the country games.
J. Michael Neal
Overhearing a conversation at the next table I’ve realized something. If you are rich enough that there is any point in doing financial planning to minimize what your estate pays in taxes when you die, it means that you’re rich enough that I lose respect for you if you actually put a lot of effort into estate planning. It means that you’ve misunderstood the primary purpose for living.
He who dies with the most toys is still dead.
Gin & Tonic
Too slow.
chopper
i figured as much. sometimes cynicism really pays off.
Morzer
I thought that Obama’s recent press conference was cleverly designed to depict him as a deal-maker, while making it almost impossible for the House GOP to actually vote for the deal. And lo and behold, Cantor is denouncing the deal and the teabaggers are trying to amend it to death.
Rather nicely done by the Great Kenyan Socialist Atheist Muslim Fascist Crypto-Republican Betrayer Of Tender Progressive Hearts Everywhere.
chopper
@Alex S.:
that’s the thing. it was a good deal for O, and the GOP knows it. but the public knows it’s a pretty good deal all around.
rikyrah
in goes Cantor’s SHIV to Orange Julius
22over7
@Morzer:
Nice title, but you forgot homosexual.
Comrade Jake
Some men just want to watch the world burn.
Morzer
@J. Michael Neal:
Everyone knows that Real Men measure their Real Manliness in car-elevators.
Mark S.
@Jay C:
No, and this is why this whole thing has been mostly bullshit. But hopefully this will cause a civil war within the GOP.
Linda Featheringill
@Grumpy Code Monkey: #17
I agree.
Morzer
@22over7:
I should have included Homometrosexual, this is true. I shall now force myself to read two Hamsher units of high-octane rage as a punishment.
Walker
@J. Michael Neal:
Family land can be an issue (though the cut off is these days are pretty high). I kind of wish my family had known about S-corporations before my great-grandfather died. We managed to preserve enough of it afterwards.
Comrade Jake
LOL – Joe Scarborough is waving his pom-poms at the House GOP. WOLVERINES!
beltane
@J. Michael Neal: I’ve always interpreted “He who dies with the most toys wins” to mean “He who dies with the most toys has a lot of very, very happy people at his funeral.”
Soonergrunt
I’m with Bernard. If the Teabaggers want to burn it down, let them do it. Then the President and the Senate Democrats can come back with a reasonable bill that doesn’t give away the store to no gain. Let the Republicans take the heat for wrecking the economy.
And I say that knowing that people are going to get hurt. People would have gotten hurt anyway. This just keeps our name off it.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@J. Michael Neal:
You know, there was this religion, based on this guy who was nailed to a cross, which pointed out this very thing. I can’t quite remember the name of it.
ETA: Is “nailing flying spaghetti to the cross” in use anywhere?
Mike E
OT: State of Pennsylvania (coughCORBETTcough) suing NCAA over sanctions placed on Penn St. because of the Sandusky cover up.
Walker
@Soonergrunt:
Aren’t you one of the people getting hurt?
MattR
@J. Michael Neal: The only exceptions I am willing to consider are people trying to keep a business in the family. The cutoff for where the estate tax begins is high enough that this is not a concern for the vast majority of business owners (and farmers) but there are a few cases. Perhaps the most famous is Ralph Wilson, the 94 year old founder and sole owner of the Buffalo Bills. His total net worth is estimated to be a bit under a billion dollars but close to 900 million of that is due to the value of the team so there is virtually no way for his heirs to pay the taxes without selling at least a part of the team.
22over7
Young Luke is reporting that many republicans in the House are insane. He just called them “chuckleheads.”
If I didn’t realize that real things need to be done this year, my fondest hope would be to get rid of Boehner and replace him with Louie Gohmert. Let him go on MTP. Let Versailles deal with those clowns directly.
MattR
@efgoldman: Yeah. If you’re a Bills fan.
J. Michael Neal
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): Steve Hogarth was crucified?
Grumpy Code Monkey
@efgoldman:
Didn’t want to believe it was that simple.
redshirt
I don’t understand much these days, it seems.
Someone tell me: Why would a Wingnut vote for ANY bill unless it was total capitulation?
Now, given those conditions, what was so terrible about the bill that came out of the Senate last night?
Citizen_X
@Morzer:
Or in AR-15s.
Baud
The milk compromise was part of the Senate bill, so if it falls apart, milk prices go up.
Mike E
@efgoldman: Congress becomes Jumanji at that point.
kindness
The current Republican Congress is a fail show but oh how it assists the pearl clutching Village Elders in decrying how the system is broken and it’s everyone’s fault, uh, wait…but how does that work when it’s all generated by Republican intracegence? Shut Up That’s How!
Yup. That’s the Village we know.
Gex
@Hungry Joe: Fair point.
But I am all for making them be as ridiculous, petulant, obstructionist, and irrational as possible to continue to damage the brand.
I’m glad to see the House has added “holding their breath until they turn blue” to their “the Dems are big meanies that hurt our fee-fees” as reasons why they can’t do their job. It is really amazing how the party of machismo that gleefully dishes out serious abuse to every other demographic can’t handle a little mocking. Hence, I guess, the push for Conceal and Carry and Stand Your Ground laws.
Morzer
@Citizen_X:
No, no. Even some of the poors have AR-15s. Real Men have Real Money and Real Car-Elevators.
MikeJ
@MattR:
So his kids get first crack at buying an NFL team worth $900,000,0000 for 40% of its value. How on earth is that a bad deal for anyone?
If the team actually generates enough revenue for it to really be worth $900m, somebody will gladly loan them $360M. On their books it won’t be much worse than having a few high priced players with long term contracts.
beltane
@Baud: “Let them drink tea.”
As much as I loathe the House Republicans I think I detest the people who elect them even more. This country is infested with disease causing Republican voters and there’s nothing we can do to protect ourselves.
Jeremy
The bill was a reasonable compromise and more to the benefit of the Democrats. I don’t why some on the left act like this deal was bad and that they are okay with people suffering. This entire episode just shows that the far left and right have a lot in common.
hitchhiker
Obama’s long game is about not slipping into a new recession, period. He’ll do whatever he has to to keep that from happening, EXCEPT letting the Rs use the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip . . . and the reason for that is he’s learned that once that sucker is on the table, you get financial upheaval no matter what you do. If they’re going to play with it, they’re going to be playing solitaire.
They’ll use his fundamental decency and determination to be responsible against him every step of the way, and they’ll do it while proclaiming with faux nobility that they’re saving the republic from socialism.
I’m not sure how much stomach I have for this spectacle anymore.
Baud
@Soonergrunt:
I don’t share your view of the deal, but if we have to go over the cliff, this is absolutely the best way to do it. Whether by design or chance, it couldn’t have worked out better politically for the Dems than this.
Baud
@beltane:
Republican voters have up till now been able to spout their idiocy while receiving the financial benefit of the Obama administration (steady growth, stock market gains, low taxes). I guess we’ll see how strong their commitment is now that they will get directly hit in the pocketbook as a result of their cause.
Linda Featheringill
I have a question. If Cantor controls maybe half of the Republicans in the House on the outside and Boehner can lead the other half, couldn’t Boehner strike a deal with Nancy and pass some legislation?
Linda Featheringill
Another question. Is there anything administrative that Obama could do for the unemployed?
Baud
@Linda Featheringill:
Boehner would lose his job as Speaker, and he cares more about his job than his country.
Soonergrunt
@Walker: Yes and no. My VA disability will stop, but my employment at VA will still be OK. My agency is exempt. I’ll take a hit, to be sure. About 20% of my income, and since my wife works for the State of Oklahoma Veterans Affairs, which is almost entirely funded by federal money, she will probably be furloughed herself and that’s a huge chunk of our income.
This isn’t to say that I want everything to be screwed up for a long time. I don’t. I’m hoping that the backlash will be sufficient that we can get a better deal in a couple of weeks to a month.
Bernard might get hurt worse. He works at the War College. I think he would probably be furloughed, but I could be wrong.
@Baud: I think we’re going over whether we want to or not. We might as well make the best of it.
Morzer
@Linda Featheringill:
That’s a very big if. It’s more likely that Cantor can threaten 90% of the GOP caucus with a teabagger primary if they deviate from the orthodoxy of the insane.
Ted & Hellen
I loathe this kind of lazy, snooty writing.
No, no, no…EVERYONE does NOT understand this. Most of the American retarded public does not understand it; in fact most of the American public believes both sides do it.
And your president and the congressional dems are afraid to tell them otherwise, thus the stupidity continues.
Southern Beale
Would someone explain to me why the next Congress is going to be better than this one?
Linda Featheringill
@Southern Beale: #83
No, I can’t.
Anoniminous
@Cermet:
Do 18 non-insane Republicans, willing to risk a primary challenge from the Right, exist in the House?
(Honest question, I have no idea.)
eemom
@Morzer:
hey Morz! Nice to see you back here. Happy New Year!
Linda Featheringill
@Soonergrunt: #80
VA disability will stop? Oh, dear.
MattR
@MikeJ:
They are one of the lowest revenue generating teams in the league. They probably earn positive profits every year, but not much and largely because they are already spending less that most other teams. There is a reason that the owner is not worth much more than the value of the franchise. If they take on an additional $10-20 million in expenses they will have to cut back elsewhere which will probably affect the product on the field which leads to less fan enthusiasm and less revenue, etc..
And I seem to remember the NFL has rules about how much money owners can borrow (though I could very well be mistaken about this part).
And there is always the possibility of relocating the team to a larger favorable market
Baud
@efgoldman:
I have no doubt who they’ll blame it on. I’m interested in how much fight they’ll have.
Ruckus
@Soonergrunt:
Do you know what else in the VA is affected? Right now I think my care is keeping me alive and I’d like that to continue.
So yes, I’m being a bit selfish here.
BTW Costa Rica is looking better and better every day. I can live on my SS and health care, while payment is mandatory, is very good and cost effective ($78/month).
digitals3rf
Obama’s 11-dimensional chess strikes again. When your enemy is hanging themselves, don’t interrupt. Next bill should come after filibuster reform, and with 250k minimum on hikes, debt limit inclusion mandatory, heavily tilted to military spending cuts. Let the big business buddies tar and feather all of these insane assholes and Obama declare open rhetorical war on them.
M31
@geg6: @geg6:
“not even an idiot on the level of Luke Russert can now ignore what these people are”
Wanna bet?
I used to think there was limit to the ‘both sides are at fault’ and ‘if only the Democrats would come to the middle’ stuff, but I’ve been proved wrong waaaaaaay to many times.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Anoniminous: Doesn’t matter if the Republican leadership doesn’t bring it out to vote.
Mnemosyne
@Gex:
I was wondering yesterday what color Boehner would turn if he held his breath. It wouldn’t be blue with that orange ground color of his.
Tripod
@Linda Featheringill:
He’s trying to retain the Speakership without blowing up his caucus.
But yea, he’d only need to piece off 16 GOP members to retain the Speakership and a working majority in the next congress.
M31
@Gin & Tonic:
“Wanna bet”
ha ha I should have read more before posting.
beltane
@efgoldman: The media these people consume will never ever allow them to blame the GOP. RW America, RW media, and the GOP are all members of the same cult. There is no daylight between the Republican base and the Republican party, both must be marginalized if the country is to survive.
shortstop
@Linda Featheringill: You know that UE benefits were extended at the eleventh hour, right?
ETA: Mea culpa. I thought this had passed the House as well as the Senate. I really do not have enough time this week to pay attention to the degree I’d like.
Ruckus
@Linda Featheringill:
The number of democrats is higher in both the senate and the house. It may not help but it just might.
jp7505a
@Linda Featheringill: If Boehner allows a straight up or down vote, then any combination of dems and reps that = 218 will get the deal passed.
That is a BIG if. There is a self imposed GOP Hasterart rule in which for any legislation to pass it must have a majority of the replublicans voting for it. A majority of the majority. It has the same constitutional basis as the Senate fillibuster, i.e. none. It is simply a House rule designed to gum up the works.
That is the significance of both Obama ande Pelosi asking for a straight up or down vote.
The Dangerman
@efgoldman:
They do care; they don’t want one.
Morzer
@eemom:
And Happy New Year to you, my dear eemom. Has anyone seen the artist formerly known as Matoko-chan? What happened to that small bundle of raging self-contradiction?
Anoniminous
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
True.
However, the MSM is reporting the Bill will be brought to a vote with Cantor, et. al., amending it such that it will be DOA in the Senate.
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
There’s often chatter about bringing a team here, but the LA City Council and the LA County Board of Supervisors are both adamant that any new or remodeled stadium would have to be paid for with private funds and would not receive a dime in taxpayer money, which means those Randian souls at the NFL refuse to bring one here if they aren’t going to get free government money to do it.
It’s especially shortsighted of them because the Staples Center is making money hand over fist and they didn’t get a dime of taxpayer money.
Texas Dem
I’d like to think Obama foresaw the House R reaction to the Senate compromise, and realized they’d blow up the deal, thereby making themselves look even more foolish. But is our President really playing 11 dimensional chess, seeing several moves ahead of the rest of us, or is he just incredibly lucky that his opponents are insane? We use to have these sorts of discussions about Clinton, too. He almost always ended up looking a hell of lot smarter than the rest us, and that’s because he was, but many of his escapes depended on the fact that his opponents nearly always overreached and destroyed themselves. See, e.g., Newt Gingrich, Ken Starr, etc. Is history repeating itself?
Mike E
@Morzer: Beetle Juice!
pseudonymous in nc
Once again, the House Batshit Caucus saves Obama from his willingness to sell his granny as long as there’s a deal done.
jp7505a
CBO has just scored the bill. It will add about 3.5 trillion to the debt (give or take an assumption or two) over the next 10 years,
This is progress?
Costa Rico, eh. Well I have enough trouble with English so maybe off to Canada or join my cousin in the outback of Australia.
Morzer
@Mike E:
Say what?
beltane
@Texas Dem: History didn’t even get a chance to repeat itself here. We’re dealing with the same crazy GOP except they’ve grown quite a bit crazier over the past generation. I really don’t know what the long-term solution is to this problem.
J. Michael Neal
@MattR: Yeah. remember, sports teams carry a premium in their valuations because they’re just more fun to own, and give the owner more visibility, than owning any other companies of a similar size. (Remember, add up all of the NFL’s revenue and they wouldn’t be close to a Fortune 500 company.)
However, if Wilson’s heirs have to sell off a chunk of the team, my heart won’t exactly bleed for them.
Baud
@pseudonymous in nc:
Congrats. Of all the idiot firebagger bullshit I’ve read today, yours is the most disgusting. Although there are still several hours to go.
Texas Dem
@pseudonymous in nc: Exactly. I think Obama made the deal with McConnell because he feared the economic consequences of not having one. And those were sound considerations, in my opinion. But now that the House Rs are going to basically take a dump on the Senate compromise and send it to political oblivion, Obama ends up looking like the second coming of Honest Abe and the House Rs look, well, totally insane.
Emma
@Texas Dem: Personally I think it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. Sometimes he’s good and sometimes he’s lucky. Which IMO is the best way to be.
pseudonymous in nc
@Baud:
And who the fuck are you? Self-appointed arbiter of disgust for 2013? Fuck off.
Obama makes bad deals. The House GOP is collectively too stupid to accept them. This is not eleven-dimensional chess. Pointing this out is not firebaggery. Stick a fucking drone in it.
Baud
@pseudonymous in nc:
Fuck you. You crossed a line when you brought Obama’s dead grandmother into this.
Ruckus
I posted a few days ago that I felt the country is broken and this is just the process we go through watching it die. A few told me I am wrong and we will win in the end. But I still contend that if the elected representatives can not govern then the government will fail. We almost did once before by warfare, now we are doing it by an even greater stupidity. I don’t think there is any fast or easy answer, and possibly none at all. Some have pointed out that CA has had so many problems due to prop13 and what it allowed the minority to do. We now see a similar process in congress. What is actually a minority of the country is being held hostage by the house. But here we have no real way to fix the problem and we may have run out of time. I think we have but I don’t see where we may go, good or bad from here. I don’t think the founders ever considered that an entire political party would desire to not govern. They thought that the parties would disagree but in the end they would compromise to make a working government. President Obama, it seems to me followed this ideal. I think he realizes that there is no compromise with cult members, which is what the teapartiers/conservatives are.
Where do we go next if those same cult members don’t stop drinking the koolaid?
Texas Dem
@Ruckus: History provides several answers, none of them desirable: military coup, civil war, economic upheaval leading to a dictatorship of some sort. Happy new year!
pseudonymous in nc
@Baud:
Idiom fail. Also, most middle-aged adults have dead grandparents. Fuck you, and enjoy your fucking pie.
Morzer
@Ruckus:
The country gets off its ass and organizes effectively in order to shut the GOP cretinocracy out of power at the local and national levels.
Cassidy
AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH! WORSE THAN BUSH! HE SOLD US OUT! THREW THE REAL PURR PROGRESSIVES UNDER THE BUS!
Wait, what? It was the house again? Never mind. Carry on.
Jeremy
@pseudonymous in nc: Yeah because this deal was really so bad. I really don’t understand some on the left. You get most of what you want and to some it’s not good enough.
I really can’t understand why some are mad about this deal and don’t care about the ramifications.
SiubhanDuinne
@22over7:
And anti-colonial.
Mike E
@Morzer: My lame joke at your evocation of what’s-her-name. Apologies.
Ruckus
@jp7505a:
I’m not sure of Australia. As an american I find that understanding spanish is not much harder than australian or any of the other queens english countries.
Oltrol
@Morzer:
Beetle Juice!
Beetle Juice!
Bettle Juice!
Its done now.
eemom
@Morzer:
Sad to say, she seems to have permanently vanished.
Well, not all would be sad to say it — but I did grow to appreciate her childlike ability to call “emperor has no clothes” on certain of Cole’s more ludicrous FP selections.
Morzer
@SiubhanDuinne:
Oh fine.I’ll throw in a “Driven By Anti-Imperialist Rage From The Father He Never Knew”
pseudonymous in nc
I’ll just quote Noam Scheiber’s tweet here: “Obama a terrible potus to have if other side rationally crazy, but may be exact right guy when other side is irrationally crazy, like house.”
I don’t believe for a second, though, that the WH gamed out this denouement, with Cantor daring Boehner to commit political hara-kiri.
beltane
@Ruckus: During the Civil War these same reactionary forces attacked the United States militarily and could thus be defeated militarily. The problem now is that we are under attack by a political/ideological tumor for which there is no known cure. Either the United States survives or the tumor survives, it can’t be both.
Morzer
@eemom:
Did she plunge over the Reichenbach Falls in a death-grip with ED Kain?
SiubhanDuinne
@22over7:
Kids these days and their crazy slang.
Chris T.
@Ruckus: I did not have a particular date in mind, but 1999 was when they took down the last of Glass-Steagall and I predicted another Great Depression would come.
Peregrinus
@Morzer:
Probably with Freddie deBoer.
General Stuck
@pseudonymous in nc:
So, all the firebaggers are in agreement. But can they juggle, stilt walk, mime, or do other clown stuff?
LAC
@Jeremy: It is because of teh corporations and DRONES!!! AHHHHH!!!
At this rate, they can phone it in. On their Iphone 5…while sipping their lattes….
eric
@Texas Dem: yes and yes. A strong economy in 2014 and 2016 means the GOp has to run on cultural issues only and they are losing those more and more with every passing minute. The GOP is still betting that a low tide sinks all democratic boats so they can all be unicorn fairy dust hunters
MattR
@efgoldman: Late to get back with a response. If I am reading this right, Buffalo is the 52nd largest TV market. Taking a quick glance through the list and Sacramento, Portland, San Antonio, Las Vegas (other than the gambling issue), Salt Lake City and Oklahoma City are all viable improvements over Buffalo (ignoring the facilities currently in place in those cities).
Litlebritdifrnt
@Baud:
Which will cost the government an absolute fortune seeing as milk is one of the things covered under WIC.
They really haven’t thought this one through have they?
Baud
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Fixed for accuracy.
Ruckus
@Texas Dem:
That’s a lot shorter way of saying it but yeah.
@Morzer:
When is that going to happen? And how? And can it wait till enough of the cult members die off? Right now we are pretty effectively screwed. I hope it changes. I’m not very positive, as maybe you noticed. But my question really is how will this happen. What is the mechanism to change it? You can’t demand it, you can’t wish it, you can’t plan it. Who is going to push this and who will they convince? Cult members? Not bloody likely.
LAC
@pseudonymous in nc: hey, sucklord in nc…any time you want to get off of your duff and run for office because you “gots” the great ideas, do so. Otherwise, go suck a bag of dicks and fuck off already.
Peregrinus
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I don’t think they’re thinking anything through at this point. Obama and the Dems want to get a deal; the GOP wants to burn the house down, or get close enough for (small) government work.
The deal looked cobbled together from bits and pieces of things both parties wanted – which suggests they’re rating proposals less on “overall governing philosophy” and more “will this shit possibly get votes?”
MattR
@J. Michael Neal:
I agree. But I also don’t hold it against them if they are trying to do estate planing to prevent that from happening
Keith G
@Ruckus: I don’t think you are too far off. There are a handful of very significant reforms that need to be made and we aren’t making them. What’s worse, it seems that we have even stopped doing the cosmetic bull shit that might make us viable for an extra decade or two.
Baud up there is carrying on about firebaggers. That’s just about like living in the Ninth Ward as Katrina moved in and being worried about the car windows being rolled up.
I actually think a patch-work deal might get made in a week or two, but there are so many bigger fights ahead and the opposition is so entrenched in their own mythology that I too am not hopeful for the long term. I just don’t think that the center-left political leadership is up to the huge task in front of us (I’m not sure anyone could be).
SiubhanDuinne
@Morzer:
Best, pithiest, most succinct description I’ve ever seen of her.
Jeremy
@pseudonymous in nc: I still have not heard a rationale response from the emo left about why this deal is terrible. All I’ve heard is nonsense and people who clearly know nothing about policy.
And what I really hate is the condescending, disrespectful and sometimes racist tone from some on the left and the right to the president. It’s okay to have disagreements but they have to be grounded in facts and reality.
AxelFoley
@Viper:
New troll at Balloon Juice?
johnny aquitard
How can I turn off the fucking moble theme? The switch at the bottom of the page has no effect. It just reloads with the moblie theme.
JoyfulA
@MattR: And there are state inheritance taxes, which can start on much smaller estates and increase dramatically with distance of relationship to the deceased.
Baud
@Keith G:
FWIW, I’ve generally restrained from attacking firebaggers because I consider them irrelevant and a distraction. I was responding to what I read as an inappropriate allusion to Obama’s departed grandma (which the offender subsequently said was accidental).
Ruckus
@beltane:
Once again more succinct, but yes this is my point.
We have no mechanism to affect the necessary change quickly enough to keep from screwing over substantial pieces of well, us. I have no answers, and I’ve heard none forthcoming.
SiubhanDuinne
@Morzer:
::nods approvingly::
Yes, that’s much better.
NR
@Jeremy:
Because Obama broke one of his central campaign promises. Because he made some of the Bush tax cuts permanent in exchange for a temporary extension of some benefits. Because he limited revenue sources with a much worse fiscal showdown coming up in just a couple of months.
Pretty simple, really.
kc
@Bruce S:
Haha, I was just thinking the same thing . . .
Mike E
@johnny aquitard: my Motorola Droid says yes you can.
Morzer
@Ruckus:
It will happen when people like us get off our asses and do it, rather than spending hours telling each other how nice it would be if a miracle happened.
Jeremy
One thing I give the right wing credit for is being organized. They might be crazy but they organize and stand by their political leaders and try to push them in their direction. The left in this country has been so dysfunctional since the end of the 60’s. And some of the lefty blogs show that many talk a big game but don’t do anything.
CaseyL
The Hastert Rule isn’t a law; Boehner could decide to bring the bill to the floor and let it pass with Democratic votes. That would likely end his Speakership, though, which he cherishes more than anything else.
I do think Obama at least suspected the bill would die in the House, or be so full of poison pill amendments that the Senate wouldn’t re-pass it. I wonder if he’ll take to the airwaves again after the House vote, assuming there is one. I hope he had some kind of back-up plan.
The next Congress will be incrementally better than this one. Maybe incrementally will be enough. If not… 2014 is a long time to wait to be able to govern effectively.
Interesting times!
FlipYrWhig
@Jeremy: Nobody knows why the deal is terrible; people barely know the specifics. That’s really not what anyone complaining is complaining about. They were primed to complain for weeks, with first the Medicare rumor, then the Chained CPI kerfuffle, and now that neither of those are happening, there’s some kind of abstract freakout about the “meta” issue of willingness to compromise in general. So the big complaint becomes that he didn’t get enough considering his “leverage.”
FWIW, I’m still not sure what the endgame was supposed to be if there was no deal, the sequester happened, tax rates went back up, and Obama just hung tough. For what? What was supposed to happen at that point? Just a staring contest where the Republicans blink first because the public gets upset with them, and then they cry uncle and Obama gets everything he/we ever fantasized about? Why would that be what happened? At a certain point, there would have to be some kind of deal. Why would it be better than this one, and how many months were we supposed to wait for that eventuality?
jl
No, no one could have predicted that…
The House GOP Caucus has enough crazy people in it, no telling what they would do.
But what happened to an ‘up and down’ vote? Looks like Boehner is trying to kill it without leaving his fingerprints by waffling around about whether he supports it?
Jorge
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I don’t thinking is a concern for them …
Corner Stone
@Jeremy:
Based on clearly observable events over at minimum the past month, this may be one of the most clueless things you’ve said here.
Tough call, but it’s up there.
Keith G
@Baud:
Conversations would be a lot more enjoyable and informative if more folks adopted your idea.
As to the intemperate references to the departed…that does seem to happen a bit around here. Are there rules?
AxelFoley
@Ted & Hellen:
Oh, so you aren’t American? Because if you are, he IS your President, too. I just love how it galls muthafuckas like you that Barack Obama is the President of the United States.
Morzer
@efgoldman:
The Jaguars are a team, not a rabble?
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@FlipYrWhig:
How are chained CPI and Means-testing related? Two sides of the same coin?
Currently we have a defined benefit retirement system within SS. Is this the equivalent of changing to a defined-contribution system?
I am trying to wrap my head around this.
Morzer
@efgoldman:
I thought Obama was making sure the GOP couldn’t vote for the deal when he gave his most recent – and uncharacteristically triumphal – press conference.
MattR
@efgoldman: That was such a huge “fuck you” to the city of Baltimore, especially when taken in combination with what the NFL did for Cleveland when the Browns left.
zizi2
Question to gleeful progressives that deal possibly dies, unless you don’t care about unemployment insurance, the various tax credits, alt energy stimulus, AMT, Doc Fix etc, the expiration of ALL bush tax cuts does not mean one whit of anything we want will be passed by the next congress.
If Boehner cannot bring a bill to the floor today to save Middle Class there is no reason he or Cantor will bring that to floor after we go over the cliff. This GOP is impervious to national, voter or any interest other than their own ideological religion. We will not get ANYTHING we want from them ever. They JUST. DON’T. CARE!
FormerSwingVoter
@Jay C:
Practically speaking, it makes the withholdings from paychecks a nightmare. People will likely see a big hit in their first couple of paychecks, depending on how long it takes to resolve. Basically, every payroll processor in the country at DC, blinking, saying “okay… so now what? These checks still need to go out. What do we send to you guys, and what do we send to these guys?”
Ruckus
@Keith G:
(I’m not sure anyone could be).
Alas this is the crux of the problem as I see it. I think Obama is not at all a bad president. I don’t agree with everything but overall I’d give him pretty high marks, maybe a B+. As a person I’d probably give him an A. But I don’t think he can get it done because I only see this as an internal problem to the conservative side of the isle. And they have gone there willingly, so they are not going to back off. This is a conservative/republican problem. It has to change from inside. So who in the conservative party is going to get this done? Better yet, who among the conservatives is going to even try?
Jeremy
@NR: So wait the main complaint is that the threshold went from 250 to 400-450 ?
The campaign promise was keeping tax cuts for the middle class. I highly doubt regular middle class Americans who don’t hang on blog and complain all day care if the threshold went up a bit. I would prefer 250 and above but what guarantee do we have that the republican will cave at the 250 threshold and keep all of the stimulative measures/ credits for the working poor ???
The republicans were not going to agree to take the debt ceiling off the table no matter what so this notion that the republicans will just do whatever the Dems want is ridiculous.
Baud
@Keith G:
I hadn’t noticed the trend. Perhaps I’m more sensitive in this case because I remember when she died and I’m aware of how much she meant to the President, so it’s less if an abstraction to me.
redshirt
Some folks on the left are just as stupid as these Wingnuts.
I ask again, purity baggers: What will make the Teabaggers vote for any of your Magical Unicorns? Do you understand how our legislative process works?
Jeremy
@zizi2: Exactly ! But you can’t tell certain people who know nothing about the political process or how to get things done. Some are more concerned about beating the GOP to a pulp and don’t care about the economy, the unemployed, the poor, the middle class. They say they do but it’s just talk.
The GOP is not going to accept everything the Dems want no matter what happens, because they don’t have to.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@Ruckus:
He just won re-election with a substantial margin. How long shall we tolerate his dearth of principled leadership; by that I mean, display the courage of his convictions.
We chided Mitt for having no moral core, and laughed at his social retardation arising from having no rudder. I see a glint of that(moral core) in Obama, but I don’t see a fire, I see cool, and I don’t mean blue
I don’t sense he wants anything except a legacy of ‘do no harm’ demonstrated with the necessary blandness and contempt for radicalism. Maybe he is the Jackie Robinson of politics, but I recall even Jackie was known to bare his cleats, from time to time.
Of course, this will result in permanent probation for me, but I take my Firebagger derogations with a grain of salt and a jigger of Mescal.
FlipYrWhig
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin): FWIW, I just posted something downstairs about that.
Peregrinus
@CaseyL:
I think even if he weren’t going to lose the Speakership in such a circumstance (which he would), he wouldn’t want his signature accomplishment to need the help of Nancy Pelosi. That’d be admitting he has no business leading a caucus.
Mnemosyne
@Texas Dem:
It was also politically impossible to not have some kind of a deal, because the news channels have been apoplectic about the “fiscal cliff” for weeks now. There was no possible way for Obama to say, “Screw you guys, I’m taking my vacation, see ya after the New Year.” He had to be on the spot, visibly working on a deal, so that the claims by Republicans that he wasn’t doing anything would be obviously bogus.
@pseudonymous in nc:
I predicted it a week ago, and I’m a secretary living in Los Angeles, not someone working in the White House. I’m pretty sure the White House is even more aware than us blog commenters of all of the divisions within the Republican Party and how they can be exploited.
But, hey, if it makes you feel better to think that Obama accidentally blew up four or five deals in a row just out of sheer incompetence because he didn’t understand the dynamics of the Republican House as well as you do, suit yourself.
Jeremy
@Corner Stone: Well it’s true !
The right wing does organize while many on the left sit on their behinds and complain. Look you can say it’s stupid but look at how they taken out the moderate and liberal republicans over the decades. They have systematically moved the republicans to the right since the late 1970’s.
mak
So, where the fuck is Boehner?
FlipYrWhig
@redshirt:
I think the idea is that if Obama hangs tough, eventually The People will blame Republicans for why their lives are getting all fucked up, and they’ll start yelling at their Congressfolks and writing mean letters to the editor, and the Republicans will hear all the fuss and be so chastened that they knuckle under and give Obama what he wants.
No, I don’t understand why that would be at all likely.
Mnemosyne
@Jeremy:
I know it seems petty to rational people but, yes, that’s their complaint and the reason they’re thrashing around like a three-year-old who’s been denied a second cookie.
The fact that they’re equally as apoplectic about that one compromise as they were about the prospect of Social Security cuts last week tells you a lot about them and how hard they work to maintain their outrage at everything the president does.
Baud
@mak:
My money’s on drinking himself shitfaced.
Peregrinus
@mak:
If I had to guess, holed up in his office taking a very, very deep swig from a bottle of Woodford Reserve.
That’s what I would be doing in his place, and I don’t even drink bourbon.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@FlipYrWhig:
Thx…moar
MikeJ
@Mnemosyne:
And you know how lazy “they” are. you think we wouldn’t be hearing that?
Morzer
@mak:
Hiding in a closet, clutching his gavel and a half of Old Scrotum’s Most Peculiar.
Corner Stone
@Jeremy: They can organize and try to push their leaders their way or they can organize and stand by their leaders. It can’t be both.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: Not to mention that there are a number of Democratic Senators who represent states where the people, even some of the Democrats!, are rather affluent. And their policy preferences are presumably baked into the legislative cake too.
Chris T.
@Jeremy:
Does seem like that, doesn’t it?
In one sense it hardly matters at all. Once you get past the main body of income numbers, the tail gets very long as the numbers rise quite rapidly: N families earn $300k or more, (80%-of-N) earn $500k or more, (70%-of-N) earn $750k or more, (50%-of-N) earn $1M or more, (40%-of-N) earn $2.5M or more, (30%-of-N) earn $5M or more, (20%-of-N) earn $10M or more, etc. If a “Rich Jerk Tax” is moved up a few hundred k of income, very little happens to the total take as most of it comes from the large number of people who “earn” hundreds of millions.
In another sense, it seems to matter a lot to some people, because they had the notion that Obama was “drawing a line in the sand” as Krugman put it today, then when someone steps over the line he draws another one, and so on, and on. “I dare you to cross this line. OK, I dare you to cross this one. Now this one…” While it “looks weak” to some, to others (me at least) it looks like he’s getting them to over-extend themselves, where they will soon find they are cut off with no backup.
Baud
@Chris T.:
A related problem is that every proposal Obama puts forward in negotiations is deemed a “line in the sand.”
NR
@Jeremy:
No it wasn’t. Obama used the $250k figure repeatedly in his campaign. It was, in fact, one of his central campaign promises that he would let the tax cuts expire for people making $250k and up.
? Martin
So 90% of Senate voted for this, and the WH supported it, and Bohner will kill it rather than rely on a single Democratic vote to pass it – and we will be greeted with hews and cries of “Both Sides Do It!”
Joy.
redshirt
@FlipYrWhig:
And that might work eventually – over several years and lots and lots of pain.
There’s no easy way out of this given the House has to pass the bill.
I’m also disgusted by these frequent refrains of “OBAMA SOLD US OUT”, like he’s just gleefully waiting for the chance to cut Social Security.
Jeepers!
Peregrinus
@Martin:
Started last night already. People on my FB wall – nominally moderate or liberal – going “I’m so disappointed in our elected officials” or saying how disgusted they were with everyone involved.
I admit I didn’t go after any of that. I had better things to do, for once. But God, was it annoying to see such bullshit from people who are otherwise intelligent observers.
quannlace
Eric Cantor is a sociopath. That is all.
Oh, wait. He’s also a useless dick.
NR
@Mnemosyne:
You’re right. It’s not like $200 billion is a lot of money that could be used to help any number of people or anything. It’s not like the loss of that revenue will lead to even more painful cuts for the poor and the elderly in the next fiscal showdown. It’s not like Obama made a clear promise and then broke that promise. You’re right, the difference in numbers is utterly insignificant and anyone who says otherwise is just petty.
Why don’t you read this for some perspective?
I can’t wait for you fucktards to start calling Kid Oakland a firebagger.
redshirt
@NR: What does it matter to you? Seriously? How does going from 250 to 400K affect you?
This was one of the few compromises the Admin made. They got that back and more by having no spending cuts. And yet – SOLD US OUT, right?
What do you propose is done next? Please inform us how this will pass the House. Is it BULLY PULPITZ?
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
Thinking about this today, Boehner is done as speaker either way.
SiubhanDuinne
@Morzer:
Mnemosyne
@Chris T.:
Yesterday I referred to the $250K number as the big shiny object you create in advance of a negotiation that you’re okay with giving up but that your opponent will see as a big win for themselves if you accede to it. Since you had prominent Democrats like Chuck Schumer saying that the number was too low, I always assumed it would have to shift to keep conservative Democrats happy. (Yes, NR, believe it or not, the Democratic side of the Senate is not actually filled with Bernie Sanderses. Conservatives outnumber the liberals. Try to contain your tears.)
But, again, for the people who see negotiation as a battle to the death where you end with your foot across your opponent’s throat, any concession at all is proof of failure.
Morzer
@Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937:
I wonder whether it’s too soon to change “lame duck” to “limp Boehner”.
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
@redshirt:
Boehner needs to let it get to the floor then the Dems plus some Repugs could be enough to pass it. If there are enough Reugs willing to vote for it. The difference now is that no Dem would have voted for Plan B. If Boehner does that, he won’t be speaker again, probably.
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
@Morzer: “limp Boehner”. That’s great!
? Martin
@Chris T.:
Plus we gained the deduction limit, which increases taxes on those over $500K even more than it would have under the original plan.
Honestly, even if this plan brought in more revenue from the rich than Obama was asking for, people would be pissed because they’re just more interested in ‘winning’ than actually solving problems.
And everyone who was complaining that chasing deficit reduction was stupid when we needed stimulus – well, this plan adds $4T to the deficit over 10 years. So presumably it does that, but no recognition of that fact. This is still an epic failure.
The firebaggers are as desperate to slap that victim label on as the teatards are.
Paul
@NR:
If you are so damned upset about whatever Obama did, why don’t try to persuade your fellow people who hate Obama to show up for the next fricking election? Had they shown up in 2010, redistricting wouldn’t have given the GOP House in 2012.
And since you are quoting a link from dailykos, do you think it was wise of your fellow posters back in 2010 to have recommended diaries urging people not to vote to send a message to Obama? That turned out great!
redshirt
@Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937: Indeed. Breaking the “Hastert Rule” would be one of the good things to come out of this, if it happens. But it won’t.
We’re in a Mexican Standoff now, except one person is freaking insane. Not a fun game!
AxelFoley
@redshirt:
Notice how idiots like NR never answer this question.
Mister Harvest
@MattR:
This could be fixed by waiving the tax, but setting the basis on inherited assets to $0. As long as they keep owning the team, they don’t have to pay any tax, but they get the full bill if they do.
One of the things that is constantly overlooked in the debates on inheritance tax is that their heirs get an enormous tax break in the form of the stepped-up basis.
FlipYrWhig
@? Martin: There has been zero acknowledgment that there might be stimulative effects to this deal. And now that Obama has been re-elected, and a bad economy doesn’t necessarily play to Republican advantage, I have a hunch that the cannier Republicans in the Senate are more on board with the idea that a rising tide might lift their boat too in 2016. Let’s not forget that Dubya Bush surfed the Clinton surplus into two fucking terms.
redshirt
My twitter feed is saying the House may indeed bring up the Senate version of the bill for a vote, which would break the Hastert Rule.
Interesting.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
You mean like the unemployed people who will now lose their benefits because you got your wish and we’re going over the fiscal cliff? You sure don’t seem to give a shit about them right now, and they’ve actually lost their benefits as of last week.
You have decided that some nebulous people who may theoretically lose benefits at some point in the future are more important to you than people who have already lost their unemployment benefits right now. Currently. In the present.
Facts not in evidence. I realize it’s an article of faith among you guys that every negotiation that Obama has ever engaged it has been more and more conservative, but you never have any actual facts to back it up.
So, again, you’d rather have him stick to his guns over a difference of $200K in this one negotiation and lose any chance of getting a decent deal (which this one is) because, what, it makes you feel like your dick is bigger?
redshirt
@AxelFoley: Of course not. This is always the fundamental error in Firebagger thinking. It was the same with the ACA. At this point I’m half convinced these folks don’t understand how the legislative process works. Obama need only snap his fingers and it’s the law! But he won’t, because he is a secret Republican and wants to destroy SS.
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
Is it okay to sort of feel sorry for Boehner? This was a no win for him. Kicking an appropriations deal over to the Senate showed how little power he has. A real leader at least would have used the time to getting ducks in a row and bash some heads so they would be ready when the result arrived.
Jeremy
@Mnemosyne: He like many don’t understand that the Democratic part is a diverse coalition. You have moderate, Liberals, and Conservative Democrats. That’s why we didn’t have enough votes for a public option because some conservative Dems were against it. But like tax issue and GITMO lets just ignore them and place all blame on Obama.
Davis X. Machina
@redshirt: It would pass on a voice vote, and lose in a recorded vote.
catclub
@MattR: His heirs are the people named in his will. Not necessarily family members. My heart bleeds peanut butter for them.
Many of the founding fathers (PBOT) believed that an inherited aristocracy was something to be avoided. A purely rational ‘inheritance’ tax would be 100% goes to the nation.
Morzer
@redshirt:
If you want to see some absolute classics of firebaggerism, check out the latest Kevin Drum post and its comment thread.
Davis X. Machina
@Mnemosyne: There’s a special exception for omelets made with really progressive eggs…
redshirt
@Morzer: I’ve had my fill, thanks. I enjoy reading Teabagger nonsense, but not the Firebaggers. They should know better by now.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
If a firebagger is someone who thinks that taxing everyone with incomes over $250K will magically fix 30 years of Republican policy-making and all we have to do is hold out for that one magic piece of legislation and all of the problems of systemic poverty in this country will be fixed, then I think you have named him correctly.
Though I did notice that he forgot to include the fact that the tax rate between $250K and $400K will not change, but $250K and up will lose some tax deductions they currently claim and thus will pay more in taxes with this deal than they did before. Oversight, bad at math, or dishonest?
NR
@redshirt:
It gives away $200 billion in revenue, which is, once again, money that could be used to help any number of people in any number of different ways.
You have the same thinking error as Obama–namely, that something HAS to pass the House, that there simply is no other option.
Well there is another option. Stepping off the fiscal curb.
No deal is better than a bad deal.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I just wanted to say one last time…
Merry Cliff Mess and Happy New Year! :)
FlipYrWhig
@redshirt: @AxelFoley: It’s the same logic a baseball or basketball fan uses to account for who’s “clutch.” Any time they decide Obama didn’t come through with the game on the line, it must be because he chokes, or doesn’t try hard enough, or is throwing the game on purpose.
NR
@Paul:
This never happened. Stop lying.
I love how you Obots think you can just lie freely about shit like this. There really is no better proof of how intellectually and morally bankrupt you are.
Morzer
@NR:
Well, it’s nice to see that your efforts to build a liberal coalition are progressing so nicely.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin):
No takers, eh? No matter. Never Mind.
Villago Delenda Est
@catclub:
THIS THIS THIS.
Jefferson thought his greatest accomplishment was NOT the Declaration of Independence, but the estate tax.
FlipYrWhig
@NR: So what comes after no deal? Woohoo, off the cliff! Yeah, baby! Now, after a while, things start to pinch a bit — after all, it’s the “austerity bomb.” So something needs to be done that’s better than austerity, right? Why would that eventual deal be something better than this (do you guys still say “shit sandwich”? Ah, the classics)? Wouldn’t we just end up right back where we are, only with more months of steadily-building disgruntlement? I don’t see why the world of No Deal is better than the world of what you call the Bad Deal, or why the deal that followed No Deal would be better than the Bad Deal either.
MikeJ
@NR: Really?
scav
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin): well, many do pay you no mind, but take your similar status as a victory if it counts in your game of solitaire.
Jeremy
@FlipYrWhig: But the problem with that opinion is that some believe Obama will get everything he wants period and in our history a president/ political party never does.
Has Obama been perfect no but he has achieved a lot considering the circumstances and what I don’t like is the blatant disrespect and racism about how every other white Democratic president is better than the inept Obama. Even some here using Bill Clinton as some example of a saint.
NR
@Mnemosyne:
Funny, I must have missed that paragraph in his post. Maybe you could quote it for me?
Jeremy
@Jeremy: And I was not addressing that comment to you but to those on the left that demand perfection from Obama.
pseudonymous in nc
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, it is clearly all for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Or, alternatively, you can go on the precedent that Obama prefers a dodgy deal over no deal at all.
The problem with the deal on the table isn’t the bracketing — although there are some pretty loathsome concessions of principle over capital gains and the estate tax, the latter of which invokes the bullshit “family farm” rationale that never actually affects any family farmers.
It’s that it sets up a debt ceiling pantomime at the end of February where, absent any indication other than “this time it will be different”, the GOP House nutjobs have the upper hand because they are clearly crazy.
I hope you’ve sent Tom Harkin an email telling him he’s a firebagger.
NR
@MikeJ: I don’t know what you were hoping to achieve, but nothing you linked to says what Paul claimed people were saying on DKos prior to the 2010 election.
sneezy
@J. Michael Neal:
That is not actually correct. The last company in the 2012 Fortune 500 is Molina Healthcare with revenues of about $4.8 billion.
NFL revenues are around $9 billion, which would put them in the top 300.
Suffern ACE
@Jeremy: no no no. What liberals really want is to raise middle class taxes. They would be much happier if people making less than 250k paid higher income taxes. There really isn’t another interpretation of their outrage at this point over this compromise.
redshirt
@NR: Ah, so Austerity. Which I thought was widely acknowledged to be a very bad thing to do with a weak economy, and will cause lots of suffering across the country.
Peregrinus
@MikeJ:
Might want to use a different phrase. On the very first page of results (for me) you find two diaries, one of which is specifically about why people should vote, and another (by Jed Lewison) exploring the exact factors Paul was talking about, including that third-party voters and non-voters in 2008 broke 3:2 for the GOP and Obama voters were more likely to vote for GOP candidates than McCain voters were for Dems.
The post-2010 analyses I’ve seen cast most of the reason for the switch at independents, who broke hard for the GOP, and at the electorate, as usual, being older and whiter. Dems didn’t turn out at significantly depressed levels compared to 2006, though they certainly did compared to 2008. That’s why I hope OFA can keep the ground game going into 2014.
Villago Delenda Est
@redshirt:
So long as the top 1% and their lackies (in particular, the vermin of the Village) do not suffer, it’s all good, you know.
Paul
@NR:
You are just like the tea baggers, lying comes naturally.
A 10-second search found this diary that someone wrote in jest because there were so many anti-Obama diaries on their “wreck-list”. You could easily find tons more if you spent the time on it.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/08/27/896729/-I-Want-to-be-on-the-Rec-List-Too-My-Anti-Obama-Diary
BTW- At that time I was dumb enough to be an avid reader of dailykos. So you can claim all you want that there wasn’t any recommended diaries urging people not to vote. Hell, I read them. I was there! And because of these insane diaries I left dailykos. But please, do what the teabaggers do best, create your own reality. It seems to work for them as well as the firebaggers.
Cromagnon
Since both the teabaggers and the firebaggers are against the deal, it must be a good thing
Baud
@Cromagnon:
I’m not a fan of firebaggers, but I don’t agree with that reasoning.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
That’s weird, because there were Daily Kos diarists who thought it was happening at the time. Are they also lying Obots who lie?
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@scav:
if it counts in your game of solitaire.
Well, I do get in a game of fish, from time to time, but that game is not for your average mind, so, no matter.
Just Some Fuckhead
@? Martin:
Or exasperated cries of how “The Moderate Boehner” was once again thwarted by his caucus.
redshirt
@Villago Delenda Est: The fact that all this fake crisis is about protecting millionaires and billionaires from a small tax increase is just mind boggling. And yet another example of how the MSM is not just doing a bad job, but are actively undermining this country.
FlipYrWhig
@pseudonymous in nc:
I hope you’ve sent Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown an email telling them they’re conscienceless traitors to the proud history of American liberalism.
jl
News report says Cantor opposes the Senate Bill
GOP leader Cantor opposes Senate ‘cliff’ bill
By By ANDREW TAYLOR
http://news.yahoo.com/gop-leader-cantor-opposes-senate-cliff-bill-203129679–politics.html
So, for all the sound and fury, this thing is dead unless Boehner is willing to squeak it by with Democratic votes and a few moderate GOPers. Shortly before he is up for re-election for speaker. I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Glad I was mostly out the news noise machine last few days. Looks like the show is over on the so-called fiscal cliff, at least until a new Congress.
scav
@Suffern ACE: I dont know about that. there are certainly a noisy subsection of the self-identified tribe who seem to be more vested in rooting for injuries at this point so that they can prove that they were right all along and in every and all contexts about the utter depravity of Obama the ur-betrayer and über-KKKApitalist. Major clue is the unceasing sheer number of ultimate betrayals and capitulations that keep rolling off the pipeline. Hell, it’s the interweb:, the shrieking wheel gets the clicks.
Mnemosyne
@pseudonymous in nc:
Hey, if you prefer to believe that the Democrats have no strategy whatsoever and are just bouncing haplessly from deal to deal, again, suit yourself.
Though it does always amuse me to see people incorrectly use that quote from Candide.
Anoniminous
@Peregrinus:
In 2010 than 42% of the electorate bothered to vote. Those who did skewed heavily to the old and white, the GOP base.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@scav:
self-identified tribe who seem to be more vested in rooting for injuries at this point so that they can prove that they were right all along and in every and all contexts about the utter depravity of Obama the ur-betrayer and über-KKKApitalist.
I can totally see, the saliva dripping.
General Stuck
So once again the republicans have swallowed their own tails and collapsed in a dung heap of fail, and Obama just got lucky, for the 20th time, and and and and, he would have sold out if the wingnuts hadn’t rescued him, again. You do know what this kind of belittlement rationalizing looks like after so many trips to the well? Don’t you?
Morzer
@Mnemosyne:
Clearly we must cultivate our quotational garden.
scav
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin): mirrored ceiling?
Mnemosyne
@pseudonymous in nc:
Sorry, meant to include this, too:
And going over the “fiscal cliff” will change that how, again? Since they’re clearly crazy, they will have the upper hand no matter what. Not getting this deal will make no difference whatsoever, except possibly it will make the Republicans dig in even harder because they “won” by standing firm and not passing a deal.
FlipYrWhig
@Anoniminous: But demographically, AFAIK, the midterm 2010 electorate was a good match for previous off-year electorates among Democrats — the difference was a surge in grumpy old white people, not a dropoff in progressives. (Or, if you prefer, there was a dropoff relative to 2008, but not relative to 2006.)
JS
@geg6:
I think you severely underestimate what a colossal idiot Luke Russert is.
different-church-lady
“I’m not dead yet!”
FlipYrWhig
@General Stuck: Don’t forget the vigilant and vocal progressives in the blogosphere! Their shooting down of “trial balloons” is usually the reason why Obama can’t quite accomplish his most nefarious deeds.
Morzer
@JS:
You mean Legacy Lickspittle?
Hal
If I have any fundamental objection to the 400k number, it’s that Republicans are trying to redefine what it means to be middle class, including higher and higher salaries as middle class.
To them, someone making 50 grand is as middle class as someone making 300 grand. There is also the self serving element of this deal given how many millionaires are in Congress.
But, I ultimately cannot work up a shit fit over the 250k vs 400-450k number.
Though it is nice to see the ZOMG! OBAMA BETRAYED US!!! narrative back, at least a little. Oh how I missed you.
redshirt
@JS: Or how evil our Media is. I’ve been convinced all through this nonsense that Obama will be blamed no matter what happens. At worst – “Both sides are to blame”.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Not bad. Hope it works out.
Morzer
Truly a man of presidential caliber.
LTMidnight
@NR: People like you are so quick to put ideology over the well-being of Americans. That’s because all you care about is your own little moonbat utopia. And you forget that quite a lot of moderates and center-right people voted to re-elect President Obama.
It’s easy for you to be petty over $200K because the fiscal cliff will not affect you personally. You’ll be just fine, and as for those people who will be affected, well, sucks to be them. They’re “Matyrs to the cause”, right?
And I seem to recall you, NR, were one of those people hoping Obama would lose so you can come back here and gloat.
Well, did you vote for him? If so, you’re a hypocrite. If you didn’t, you’re irrelevant.
Davis X. Machina
@Villago Delenda Est: Actually, founding the University of Virginia, and writing the Declaration, and the statue of Virginia for religious freedom, if his tombstone is any guide.
Not that he probably didn’t like death duties, or inheritance levies, or whatever they went by in those days, too.
pseudonymous in nc
@Mnemosyne:
And it amuses me to think that you’re amused by it, Mnemogloss.
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
Looking at the numbers, what seems to have happened is that Karl Rove’s under-the-radar claims that Obama cut $700 billion from Medicare and gave it to Those People for Obamacare was really what drove the vote to Republicans in 2010. IIRC, there were an unusual number of people who had not voted in 2008 who voted in 2010, though the numbers were relatively small.
The fact that conservative Democrats refused to get behind PPACA seemed to validate those Republican claims that Obamacare stole money from Medicare and only exacerbated the problem.
Morzer
@pseudonymous in nc:
That’s a half-assed reply
Villago Delenda Est
@Morzer:
[rimshot]
Mnemosyne
@pseudonymous in nc:
Yep, you missed the point of the book. Too bad, it’s not really very long or complicated. Maybe you had a bad translation.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@scav:
That’s absurd, considering firebaggers are Vampires sucking Obama’s vital bodily fluids, thus rendering him impotent.
jl
@different-church-lady:
Thanks for the link. Not sure about theory that this approach will help Boehner with his Speakership election, so am doubtful about it. Looks like House GOP is so extreme, getting exactly what they want and blocking anything else is the Prime Directive, and no forgiveness will be extended to Boehner regardless of what cover he tries to use.
I was out of the loop since weekend, looks like it is better to just not pay too much attention right now. Who can figure this out now anyway?
We will see what happens. Nothing much else to do at this point.
? Martin
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Well, it’s clear his caucus has about 120 votes in it and Cantor’s caucus has about 120 votes in it, and the 180 Democratic caucus is supposed to just STFU and sit in the corner while the other two work to resolve their irreconcilable differences.
Baud
@? Martin:
Sucks being the minority in the House.
? Martin
@jl:
Will anything actually help with his speakership election? I think his best position for, well, 2 years running now is to simply minimize harm to that election, cross his fingers, and trust that the situation remains so thoroughly fucked that he remains the least bad option.
Anoniminous
@FlipYrWhig:
The 42% turn-out in 2010 was pretty lousy compared to previous years. The younger cohort didn’t show up [ETA: among others] and it hurt.
See NYT | Rightward, March: The Midterm Exit Polls as a quickie breakdown.
(I have better figures somewhere, darned if I can find ’em.)
scav
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin):
That totally overestimates their importance. They’re just one of the many spinning clown-faces and windmills on the miniature golf-course of modern politics. Makes for a cringe-inducing and fascinating show. While I may not agree with all his decisions, the dude in chief got a better swing than any interweb commentator I’ve suffered through yet.
SiubhanDuinne
@Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937:
No.
jl
@? Martin:
Other than not feeling sorry for Boehner, I will not stare into the abyss of House GOP thought, since that abyss may stare back, quickly.
Glad I did not have opportunity to keep up with this mess over last few days.
Edit: I am not even going to game out whether it would be better for Boehner to hold onto the damn thing or not. Life is short, and we are almost two weeks into the Mayan Apocalypse, and not sure my sanity would hold.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@scav:
I’ve suffered through yet.
I truly pray your suffering, doesn’t increase.
? Martin
@jl:
Not much to keep up with. I’ll summarize:
House GOP to America: “Fuck off”
scav
@Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin): Don’t pray too hard, your keyboard might suffer.
Mike in NC
@Morzer: Bastard wouldn’t have made a decent Cub Scout.
redshirt
Twitter tells me Cantor does not have enough votes to poison the Senate bill. So perhaps Hastert Law breaks and Boner brings up the Senate bill as is. Which would likely pass, and then we can go back to lamenting how OBAMA SOLD US OUT!
Morzer
@redshirt: While praising honest Joe Biden as a Hero Of Democracy In Our Times?
Maude
@redshirt:
Also on Twitter, not enough votes for spending cuts to go back to Senate. BBC online is covering this.
The Republicans aren’t going to slide on this and be able to blame Obama. They will blame Obama, but it won’t work.
geg6
@JS:
No, I would agree with you had I not watched him exclaim over how stupid the House GOPers are numerous times this afternoon. He was calling them chuckleheads and talking about them committing suicide. He even sarcastically said that the only hope was that Boehner could pull a Profiles of Courage moment out of his ass and even the anchor and reporter at the WH cracked up over the thought. Lil Timmeh had his best day of reporting ever today, IMHO.
redshirt
@Morzer: That meme is well developed already! According to the wonks at Brietbart.com, Obama’s just a figurehead, and it’s Big Joe who’s really running the show.
That’s today’s propaganda points. I’m sure tomorrow it will be “OBAMA DECLARES WAR ON SUCCESS!” or some such.
Bob In Portland
How about make the top income bracket at an even 40% instead of 39.6? Sell as simplifying the tax system.
Bob In Portland
@redshirt: Is there anything that the bottom feeders are suggesting about Hillary’s blood clot? Like maybe Bill is trying to kill her because of Vince Foster.
redshirt
@Bob In Portland: Oh, hell yeah. But its all about BENGHAZI coverup. She’s either faking her injuries or Obama did it to her so she don’t reveal the truth.
Seriously.
J. Michael Neal
@MattR: I don’t blame them. Blame isn’t really what I’m trying to convey at all. It’s that I think people tend to do themselves harm, at least spiritually, when they engage in estate planning. That’s true even in the case of those trying to hang onto a business like a sports team.
A lot of that feeling comes from having watched the Pohlad family try to hold onto the Minnesota Twins late in his life. It was an ugly spectacle made worse by the fact that the estate planning became entangled in attempts to get a new stadium. For a variety of reasons, getting that was an important piece in being able to keep the team in the family.
All of the Pohlad’s displayed an enormous sense of entitlement, basically taking the line that they were owed a lot of taxpayer money so that they wouldn’t have to sell the team. They resented the fact that the rest of us weren’t eternally grateful that they had done us the favor of owning the team.
More generalized, I think the process of estate planning becomes easily perverted into a belief that having things is more important than enjoying things. At the level of wealth that these people have there really is no good reason for thinking that their wealth is an end rather than means. Their heirs are going to be comfortable and all involved would be better off thinking what they want their resources to do for them rather than just holding on to them.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
Someone was suggesting yesterday (I can’t remember who) that we need at least a couple more upper tax brackets, because it’s ridiculous to pretend that people who make $250,000 a year and people who make $1,000,000 a year are exactly the same and should pay the same in taxes.
And, as long as we’re on that subject, if we’re going to decide that $250,000 or even $400,000 is the new middle class, shouldn’t FISA withholdings rise to at least that level?
Keith G
@jl:Not keeping up with this mess over last few days is the smartest choice. As far as this brouhaha goes, it seems the hand has been dealt. It’s only a question of how the last few cards will be played.
The next hand is the debt ceiling and that’s the GOP’s last chance to lead the President into a public opinion trap where he will feel the pressure to cut a bargain more favorable to the conservative position.
Lojasmo
@NR:
No, he didn’t. His campaign promise was not to raise taxes on the middle class while paying for it with tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.
dumbass
Peregrinus
@Mnemosyne:
This would be lovely, though sadly I can already see the exact counterattacks that will be deployed against it – namely all the ones already coming out against raising taxes in general, plus “ooh it’s so complicated, how will we ever figure it out!”
mir13
Congressional Republicans in disarray, voting with Democrats, or against each other. Cross and double-cross, toil and trouble. And while the GOP melts down before our very eyes, fuckin’ Firebaggers have spent the better part of 24 hours trying to piss us off (hmm, pissing off Obama supporters on GP, sounds eerily familiar. I’m sure it will come to me). Still more dick swingin’ about Obama. Jeez Louise, it never ends. They’re always wrong, and they never own up to it (again, sounds very familiar).
Go away, and leave us be. We’re watching Obama destroy the Republican Party. And you’re not invited. Nyeh.
Mnemosyne
@Peregrinus:
As I also said yesterday, if you make $1 million or more a year, you can afford to either hire an accountant or buy the super-deluxe version of TurboTax, so they’ll just have to suck it up. :-)
Peregrinus
@Mnemosyne:
They’d have to suck it up if (and only if) it managed to get passed. I can see all the arguments for it . . . and I can also see the counterarguments (that is, the rhetoric, since it’s not bad policy in the goddamn least).
NR
@Paul: I love how the only proof that you and the other Obots can find for your bullshit lies about how DKos was saying “Don’t vote for Democrats!” in 2010 is DKos diaries complaining about how people there weren’t praising Obama enough.
Go ahead. Show me these reclisted diaries saying “Don’t vote for Democrats!” in 2010. Since there were so many, I’m sure it’d be easy for you to find a few.
Oh, that’s right. You can’t. Because you’re a fucking liar and everything you’re saying is bullshit that you made up.
Mnemosyne
@NR:
You may want to review the definition of the word “purge” and ponder what it means when Kos says that he purged those diaries from dailykos.com.
NR
@Mnemosyne: Well isn’t that convenient?
Doesn’t change anything. You’re the one making the claim, you’re the one who has to provide evidence supporting it. If you can’t do that, there’s no reason anyone should believe you.
Also, it’s pretty hilarious that you’re claiming that DKos is some kind of firebagger site that advocates for defeating Democrats when the site owner actively bans people who do that.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Hal:
You’ve heard the Republicans talk about “expanding the middle class”, right? It turns out that their preferred method of expanding the middle class is to redefine it. BAM! Job done. More people are in the middle class. Now that wasn’t painful, was it? Now there are more people in the middle class and that will counterbalance the loss of the people who used to be middle class who are newly poor.
Lojasmo
@NR:
You miss the forest for the trees. Perhaps intentionally.
250000 isn’t a magic number. The president proposed to spare the middle class a tax increase. He has done that.
Shove it.
LTMidnight
@NR: The site also bans anyone that claim that some of the animosity towards Obama from the “left” is rooted in racism. Your point?
Lojasmo
@NR:
no dipshit firebagger ever discouraged voting for a democrat because “both sides do it”?
Quelle suprise, because i have had several people express just such a sentiment to me.
You are a moron.
NR
@Lojasmo: The president repeatedly promised to let the Bush tax cuts expire for those making $250k and up. He has broken that promise.
Shove it yourself.
NR
@Lojasmo: We’re talking specifically about Daily Kos here. Try to keep up.