Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
My NY Times alert on my iPhone informs me that the Senate has, once again, rejected the bullshit the clown car caucus sent over, for what must be at least the fifth time. I know these teahadists in the House reject science, but I didn’t realize they hated basic math. At any rate, they’ve voted 42 times to overturn the ACA, so maybe they really are just dumber than even I thought they were.
How do “reasonable” Republicans still self-identify with this party?
@JuddLegum Like Podesta's old line from Clinton White House: If the legislative plan depends on moderate Republicans, get another plan.
— billmon (@billmon1) September 30, 2013
Light entertainment, for the interval. The Huffington Post has video of Troutmouth Bob Woodward, hustling to be on the right side of history:
“Let’s call it what it is, they are trying to blackmail the president and say, ‘Look, we’re going to shut down the government or default on our debt unless you — we go back, rewind the clock, on Obamacare and delay it or somehow cut off the funding,” he said. “You can’t govern that way. It will not work. It will be exposed.”
(Of course, Both Sides Bob immediately pivots to explaining how Obama should be “talking with” the blackmailers, because after fifty years of undercover work it’s not just a pose, it’s a neurological tic.)
Alex MacGillis at TNR profiles one of those lemmings, now occupying George H.W.Bush’s old seat:
When this chapter of the Republican Party’s descent into radicalism is written, the representative quote may go not to Ted Cruz, who managed to say little memorable in his 21-hour talkathon, but to his fellow Texan, Rep. John Culberson. It was Culberson, a seven-term member from Houston, who, recounting how House Republicans voted Saturday to make a delay of Obamacare a condition for funding the government, declared, “The whole room: ‘Let’s vote!’ I said, like 9/11, ‘let’s roll!’”
Yes, in Culberson’s mind, holding hostage the federal government for the sake of denying health insurance to millions of the working poor (a disproportionate share of them Texans) is apparently sorta like heroically attempting to overcome terrorist hijackers armed with boxcutters, as the passengers aboard Flight 93 did on September 11, 2001 after one of them, Todd Beamer, uttered that succinct call to action…
I remember the Teahadist dropping their iconization of the Flight 93 defenders when it turned out one of them was gay, but then, I’m just a DFH cynic…
New Max. Foggy mornings are like ambrosia for me. Seriously, the even light and the intense chiaroscuro create an effect so cool that it feels like cheating.
Chat about anything.
You said it, they stink on ice:
The size of a bloc of GOP moderates ready to bring down a vote on the House floor over the government-funding bill shriveled from 25 lawmakers on Saturday to just two when the House voted just now to pass the rule.
New York representative Peter King and Pennsylvania representative Charlie Dent, two key moderates, voted no, while four hardline conservatives, including Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, voted no because the bill didn’t draw a hard enough line against Obamacare.
Good for Dent and King all the more that they went it alone. King voted against impeachment too, FWIW. Got to give these IRA-loving types credit, sometimes. They may be crazed tribalistic bloviators, but they have more sand than the Collinses and Grahams.
If you have a GOP Rep, tomorrow would be a great time pick up a phone and ask him or her to do their damn job. Whether your Rep stands with the halfway sane Reps like Peter King, with the ‘suicide bombers’ or with John Boehner in the blasted and treeless shooting gallery in between, we all benefit when you reach out and make their tomorrow a little more miserable.
Please do ask your ‘reasonable’ Rep what he or she thinks about this pack of mostly freshman or two-termer inmates running the asylum. If you live in a teabagger district then ask the staff what he or she thinks about their own caucus putting this mess in their lap, even fellow Congresspeople like Rep. David Nunes (R-CA) who called them “lemmings with suicide vests…because jumping to your death is not enough.” We will not have a better opportunity for fratricidal on-the-record quotes in your or my lifetime.
If you have the time, also point out that the ATF cannot issue any new gun permits until the shutdown ends. They might care about that.
You can reach the switchboard, if it works, at (202) 224-3121. If not then I guess you can pester wingnut Facebook friends with that Nunes quote.
Maybe I’m misremembering, but I don’t recall there being so much grumbling from Republicans about the “wisdom” of the shutdowns in the mid 90s. I’ll be very impressed if Peter King and his northeastern Republican buddies can pull this off:
For almost three years, the story in the House has been about Speaker John Boehner’s restive right flank causing him problems. But Republican moderates have apparently had enough.
In what is by far their boldest stand since the GOP took control of the House in 2010, a group of them are threatening to bring down a vote on the rule for the government-funding bill scheduled for 6:30 p.m.
New York representative Peter King is leading the charge, and his fellow New Yorker Michael Grimm is close behind him. The group told leadership on Saturday they have 25 members who are willing to bring down the rule.
They’d probably be burning their party to save it, and, more than that, Michael Grimm and Peter King may be assholes, but they’re not Tea Partiers. They’re probably closer to Obama than to Ted Cruz on most domestic issues. There comes a point where Republicans’ willingness to stick together on everything is both a moral and political failing.
And watch this loving feeling disappear like it was common sensePost + Comments (204)
President Obama just concluded brief remarks on the impending government shutdown, and it was a strong, targeted statement, laying the blame exactly where it belongs. One quote:
You don’t get to extract a ransom for doing your job.
Pulpit = Bullied.
I’ll add a link to a transcript when one becomes available.
UPDATE: And here’s a link.
President Obama’s Statement on Government ShutdownPost + Comments (106)