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.
lamh36
I posted this pic on my twitter page when Obama called Boehner to tell him he wasn’t negotiating, and now I’ma post it one more ‘gin..
Obama to Boehner, House Repubs and Tea Party: No More Fucks to Give!!!
David Koch
Black Jimmy Carter!
Worst than Bush!
Bush’s 3rd term!
He sold us out!
Attica!
Attica!
Attica!
Comrade Dread
I’m enjoying seeing the Democratic party display a backbone. It doesn’t happen nearly enough.
AdamK
I like it when the president says stuff.
Violet
@Comrade Dread: Me too. Love watching them refuse to negotiate with our homegrown terrorists, aka the Republicans.
raven
He looks pretty tired.
schrodinger's cat
Meanwhile,WashPost Editorial board; Both sides do it!
Cacti
Mr. Speaker, you can have my answer now, if you like.
My offer is this: Nothing. Not even the fee for the gaming license which I would appreciate if you would put up personally.
dmsilev
@David Koch: Benghazi! Fast and Furious! ACORN!
floridafrog
@ Cacti – its driving me crazy, I know i have heard those lines in a movie but can’t place it. What’s it from?
David Koch
I can’t believe you guys are discussing frivolous, boutique, elite, effete subjects like healthcare, the economy, and a government shutdown, instead of focusing on crucial and dire matters like telephone metadata!
TG Chicago
Obama needs to be specific: this is on Boehner.
The Tea Partiers are doing what their horrible constituents are demanding. That said, if a clean CR was put forward in the House, it would pass with Dems and non TP Rs. And it would pass in the Senate and be signed by Obama.
The only reason it’s not being put forward is that Boehner is afraid of losing the gavel if he puts it forward.
The TPs are disgusting and ignorant, but they’re acting based on their disgusting, ignorant policy preferences. Boehner is the one who is being cynical and political. If Obama framed it like this, even the “both sides”ers might understand.
gypsy howell
@floridafrog:
Godfather
Cacti
@floridafrog:
Godfather II
Botsplainer
@floridafrog:
Godfather II
Tone in DC
We’d all look tired too, I suspect, dealing with the plethora of assholes in and around Humidity Central. Not to mention the international assholes like Assad and that short guy in North Korea.
Botsplainer
@David Koch:
Griftwald and Sirota have a sad.
Jim C.
@Cacti:
WELL PLAYED.
Also, yes, I agree that President Obama’s response was pitch perfect. Calm, measured, and mature. He started with reassuring people that certain things would be okay, and then pivoted to pointing out exactly what would end up being completely fucked up by a shutdown.
From there he very firmly placed the blame right where it deserved and did everything other than actually writing the story for the lazy fucks in the media to show them how they should phrase the story.
srv
If I had hated a little more, just a little more, we would have had a little less trouble
? Martin
If Obama were a real progressive he would have demanded the public option in the CR.
Hungry Joe
The GOP will take a hit — maybe even a hard one. But those who predict its demise, well … let’s just say that over the past few years I’ve gotten very, very rich by shorting popcorn futures.
dmsilev
The President then adding, “Muahahahahahaha”.
Chris
@dmsilev:
Disorder! Chaos! Moral disintegration!
Botsplainer
@? Martin:
Clearly, this is all related to his lack of effort in selling a public option in 2009, when Teatards were flooding congressional townhalls with propagandized, trembling, screaming old white folks and paid progressive activists were sniping about what a failure Obama was from their couches, in their pajamas.
Mike E
@Cacti: Say hello to ma li’l friend!!
Botsplainer
I’m eagerly awaiting the appearance of T&H to tell us that we obots not yelling at Obama enough.
gian
He clearly forgot the Somali pirates. Ransom is how they get paid for a day’s work.
Mike E
@TG Chicago: To name Boehner doesn’t cut it in my estimation. Although, repeating “Speaker Cruz” over and over might really get the point across.
dmsilev
@Chris: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!
The Dangerman
@Hungry Joe:
Personally, I’m having a popcorn crisis; help, please!
Unless they are ready to burn it all to the ground, I can’t see how this ever ends well for Republicans (I’m including debt limit here); sooner or later, they will have to cave and then people will wonder why they shut things down over a fairly middle of the road health care act. If they ARE ready to burn it down to the ground, well, let’s get it on.
/mills lane
Chris
@dmsilev:
In short, you have a ghastly mess!
beltane
@Hungry Joe: We still haven’t managed to eradicate cholera and malaria, so it’s a safe bet that as long as we have idiots and nasty people in this country (and we will always have those) we will have a Republican party. The best we can hope for is that they will be contained to a low-level, localized infestation.
Cacti
“Keeping the People’s government open is not a concession to me.”
-POTUS BHO
lamh36
Well damn! When you’ve lost Trent Lott…..
Trent Lott on Ted Cruz: “Cut His Legs Out From Under Him”
David Koch
@Botsplainer:
Greatest episode in television history
shelly
Driving around this afternoon, heard a RW radio host getting talking about Bad Congress, Bad Bad Congress! But getting hysterical trying to convince listeners and himself that BOTH SIDES ARE TO BLAME! And Obama refusal to ‘negotiate’ is the worst of it.
He made the laughable claim that Republicans have made concessions, because Ted Cruz is no longer calling for defunding the ACA but just delay it a year. Seriously.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@lamh36: Trent Lott, Bob Bennett, Judd Gregg, None of these guys were “moderates” in any sense of the word, and they’ve all come out and said the Tea Party is the problem. Meanwhile, Mark Halperin is, I gather, still wanking out bothsides tweets
The Other Chuck
@beltane: I’d be fine with Republicans enjoying a permanent 27% minority status. Actually smaller, but once the GOP itself is that insignificant, we can take better aim at the basic ignorance problem underlying that number.
Citizen_X
@TG Chicago:
No, they’re doing what a slight majority of their voting constituents are demanding. Ted Cruz (in the Senate, but still) doesn’t give a damn what I or millions of other Texans want. We do not exist to him; we are only to be ignored, or suppressed if necessary. It is the same for every one of the Tea Party saboteurs: the 73% of Americans who aren’t foaming reactionaries don’t count.
cckids
I just read a quote from Michele Bachmann about the House vote/shutdown: “We are all thrilled, this is exactly what we wanted”. This needs to be on a loop somewhere, to remind people that this has been a deliberate act of terror by the TP Repubs.
Exactly what they wanted.
shelly
I wonder what kind of meltdown Tweety will have over the Prez’s speech?
Anya
@lamh36: I am outsourcing my reaction.
Mike E
@Citizen_X: We in NC feel your pain.
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And now the question is, do the teabaggers decide that Trent Lott, Bob Bennett and Judd Gregg are RINOs and traitors for criticizing the current star of The Movement, or do they decide that Ted Cruz was Never A Real Conservative Anyway and throw him under the bus?
The suspense is killing me. I hope it’ll last.
David Koch
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He’s saying the GOP is about to pull a Budd Dwyer and blow their brains out on live tee vee but it’s the President’s fault for not stopping them.
Cacti
@Citizen_X:
FTW
Anya
@shelly: Tweety: Reagan and Tip O’Neil, blah blah, blah. Kennedy blah, blah, blah. I guess Obama is not Irish enough for Tweety
Cacti
@Chris:
That wouldn’t take much work. He’s Cuban-Canadian.
lamh36
I read the original article on Miami Herald I think. I LMBAO. Rubio, unsurprisingly, punked completely out when confronted by actual constituents. Then once in the safety of his DC bubble basically call said constituents liars… @Anya: I’ll share that popcorn!
Rubio Reportedly Gets Earful About Shutdown On Flight To D.C.
MattF
@schrodinger’s cat: Yeah, I saw that editorial this morning. They actually, literally, in black-and-white printed words, said that ‘both sides’ are responsible.
Trollhattan
@dmsilev:
I guess he could have Bo in his lap while “Mwa-ha-haing,” but then you wouldn’t be able to see him.
Davis X. Machina
Well color me surprised — not. These people want a shutdown because it’s a shutdown.
Arguendo, assume:
Government(1) is the problem.
This course of action will shut down the government.
This course of action will stop the problem.
The shutdown isn’t an instrumental good, something that gets you a filleted social-safety net, or makes the unaccountable wealthy wealthier and more unaccountable.
It’s a bonum per se. It’s good, period.
(1) By ‘government’ we must understand the part that doesn’t fight wars of choice against swarthy infidels, or polices your sex life.
lamh36
And they’ve lost Erickson:
https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/384798048557076480
David Koch
It’s Dog_Day_Afternoon.
After calmly waiting out the hostage takers, the President is now driving Boehner and Cruz to the airport to lay the coup de grâce.
donnah
President Obama was brilliant. He said what needed to be said and spelled out how it’s on Congress to clean this mess up. I was shouting “Yeah!” the whole time. It should have been manditory viewing for the entire country.
This shit hits my hometown hard. We’re in an Air Force town and the Base will get hit very hard. I’ve got family members who will be furloughed. And a few are Republicans. I hope they accept that their party is to blame, but they won’t.
MikeJ
@cckids:
I dont understand why you differentiate between teabaggers and other Republicans. They all vote the same way, the policy outcome is exactly the same. It’s stupid to say there’s any difference between teabaggers and any other Republican.
Citizen_X
@Cacti: Aye. And the “voting” part is just that much smaller on the Dem side, thanks to the GOP.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven:
You would be too if everyday you were dodging requests from Boehner and McConnell to rescue them from the crazies in their own party.
Citizen_X
He’s laying down a marker there, methinks.
lamh36
https://twitter.com/DanaBashCNN/status/384798629715668992
Long Tooth
“Tens of thousands of Americans die every single year because they don’t have access to affordable health care”.
The president should have began with that line, paused, and only then continue on with his remarks as written.
Baud
What a great ad for Obamacare the GOP is providing. Keep making it newsworthy.
Davis X. Machina
@Citizen_X: These are the people who buy the “One man, with Jesus, is a majority” bumper stickers. They’re not fundamentally on board with democracy.
Trollhattan
@lamh36:
“GOP moderates?” What’s that?
ruviana
@MikeJ: Perhaps a propos here and I couldn’t find a link yet, but according to cnn (yes, I know…) moderate republicans are organizing to take on the rwnjs to keep the government going. So I guess I’m making more popcorn.
ETA: And lamh36 has a link.
Bill Arnold
PBO:
I excepted to see this quoted a fair bit.
David Koch
Mohmar KquaddafyiAnwar al-AwlakiAndrew BreitbartOsama bin LadenSyrian WMDsDavid BroderBob NovakPope BenedictMahmoud AhmadinejadSomali PiratesJohn BoehnerTed Cruzjl
Good speech. Wish he would have run through most of the GOP ransom demands, and added some ridicule to their bogus counter proposals Obama is supposed to take seriously and sit down and do some real git ‘er done mangotiating over. Like totallly unspecified market reforms that will end the problem with pre-existing conditions. That was one brilliant plan Cruz floated during his fake filibuster.
Ash Can
@lamh36:
Considering the fact that he’s been banging the “ditch Obamacare” drum up until earlier this afternoon, it sounds like someone just got off the phone with a rather large and important sugar daddy.
David Koch
@Trollhattan:
A winger who’s gun has jammed.
OzarkHillbilly
Before long this thread is going to devolve into a mutant mass of snark and sarcasm of Republicans and idiots.
But then, I repeat myself.
I leave it up to you as to where I am repeating myself.
MattF
@Ash Can: Y’know, normally I’d be somewhat skeptical about that sort of explanation– but what else explains this last-minute conversion? A sudden turn to sweet reason on the part of Erick ibn Erick? Ha ha.
Eric U.
my congressman is fairly moderate right up until he has to vote for something. I am not sure what he is thinking, he is old enough he’s probably going to die in office. And in the senate, I thought Pat Toomey realized that he had to act moderate to pull in the weak-minded Dem voters, but he’s gone full TP now too.
jl
@Bill Arnold: Maybe Obama, professor style, is giving the lesson in stages. This is the overview, later he can go beyond the overview, and read though the list of things that the GOP demands, which would basically make Obama a robot enacting the Romney/GOP 2012 platform.
David Koch
“Now. Say. My. Name.”
(long pause)
“You’re President Obama”
“You’re goddamn right!”
Ksmiami
Arrest the tea Asswipes and send them to gitmo for domestic terrorism. And all this over a moderate solution to health care access wtf? I mean I actually sympathize with confederate plantation owners over their civil war rationale I mean we were talking about a war over two vastly different visions of America (fortunately the right guys won) but this is truly truly deranged. It’s like I don’t understand these loonies at all
? Martin
It’s a new day, people. Peter King, moderate Republican.
liberal
@Comrade Dread:
Huh? They already caved on the military pay thing, apparently.
Patrick
@TG Chicago:
OK- If that’s the case, then they have democracy all wrong. If that’s was the case, we wouldn’t even need rep’s in Washington. We could just have a referendum for big votes.
We vote for Congress so they can represent us. They are supposed to be our leaders. Hell, if a majority of people in a district wanted to kill all children, should their congressman really introduce a bill supporting this?
A congressman is supposed to lead. The TP’s are anything but leaders. They are a bunch of pathetic, racist, bigoted and selfish small-minded people.
MattF
@? Martin: As I recall, the Whigs split into Southern Whigs and Northern Whigs just before they disappeared completely.
Trollhattan
@David Koch:
That earns at least a golf clap.
Ash Can
@lamh36: Maybe Erickson wasn’t the only one to receive a
visit from the big guy with the tire ironphone call.gogol's wife
I love you guys. This thread is calming me down. You guys are a righteous church.
jl
OK, a break from snarking on GOP. Let’s talk about Boehner.
Boehner has a choice. If he were bold, had imagination and really wanted to go down in history as a Speaker who helped his country, or maybe even did an interesting ‘leadership thing’, he could stop going with only teabagger House bills.
He has considerable freedom what to introduce. He could go to Pelosi and discuss what crazy would replace him as Speaker after midterms and do a deal.
Boehner could do something interesting stuff. But he won’t because he is mediocre, scared, a pure GOP party hack, a nothing, unimaginative,.or some combination of those.
Willie Brown, Boehner is not. I’ve always believed at heart, Boenher has all the stuff of a cheap two-bit wardheeling hoodlum, who comes to bad end in one of the later acts. We will see what happens.
His bad end is going down as one of the worst and most miserable Speakers in U.S. history, or a chump that loses his Speakership as a reward for messing over the country in the cause of dying failed reactionary and corrupt ideology.
MattR
@David Koch: Hey Man, Nice Shot.
OzarkHillbilly
@David Koch:
Heh.
MattF
@jl: I have a suspicion that Boehner was acceptable to the various Repub factions exactly because he’s weak. Now, this raises the question of who could replace him… But just imagining what could go wrong for the Republicans if Boehner is ousted makes me want to propose a Popcorn Inc. IPO.
OzarkHillbilly
@? Martin: Gud damn….
cckids
@MikeJ: I guess because, at last, we are starting to see some cracks in that facade. If Boehner puts up a clean CR, some Repubs will vote for it. NONE of the foaming TP’ers will. They are so gleeful about shutting everything down, it makes me stabby.
jl
@MattF: Boehner would be ousted by the teabaggers among the House. But I think rules for eligibility and elections for Speaker are quite loose. Doesn’t even have to be a member of the House, I don’t think members have to vote for their own party.
Why can’t Boehner go over to Pelosi and talk a deal to keep him Speaker with some Democratic support. That would be an interesting deal.
Far less wild that stunts Willie Brown pulled to keep his Speakership when the GOP had a majority in the CA Assembly.
But I don’t know the details of the rules, so maybe such a thing cannot happen. If anyone knows, please correct me.
Roger Moore
@TG Chicago:
But those disgusting teabagger constituents have only been demanding that because they’ve been systematically lied to by their Congresscritters, the Tea Party, etc. You can’t reasonably keep tell people that Obamacare will be the end of the world and then use their demand that it be blocked at all costs as an excuse for acting irresponsibly.
TG Chicago
@Patrick:
I agree with your last sentence, but you don’t seem to get that pathetic, racist, bigoted and selfish small-minded people elect pathetic, racist, bigoted and selfish small-minded representatives to enact their pathetic, racist, bigoted and selfish small-minded agenda.
The TP are indeed pathetic, racist, bigoted and selfish small-minded people. I’m pointing out that they’re not acting against their constituents’ wishes or against their own preferences. Boehner is the one doing that.
low-tech cyclist
@Bill Arnold: That was my favorite line, too.
But the whole thing was excellent. He really brought it to ’em. And it’s a relief to finally, finally see the Dems call out the Republicans for being fucking crazy, not to mention stupid and cruel.
Roger Moore
@The Dangerman:
Better than a Bubblegum Crisis.
Turgidson
@Eric U.:
Toomey was the proto-teabagger – he blazed their trail before they became a (fake) “movement”. Former Club for Growth-leading anti-tax zealot, almost primaried Specter out of his seat in 2004 before pushing him out of the party in advance of the 2010 primaries and then beating Sestak in the 2010 wave.
His work on gun control was somewhat reasonable, but he’s a right-wing freak in most other ways, I think.
TG Chicago
@Roger Moore:
The hardcore TPs don’t think they’re lying. They actually believe that Obamacare will be the end of the world.
Boehner knows better, but pretends he doesn’t. He’s where Obama’s focus should go. Call him out.
(probably not publicly, though. That might harden Boehner’s stance. Aides should go on background and point this stuff out to the David Brookses and Ron Fourniers of the world. I think those cretins might be able to get the difference between TPs [acting based on policy preferences, albeit insane ones] and Boehner [acting to save his gavel] and denounce Boehner as a result.)
Turgidson
@? Martin:
The fact that that mean-spirited blowhard is what passes for a moderate Republican these days….oh my, the mind boggles.
Mandalay
@? Martin:
More like “Peter King, presidential candidate in 2016”. He is picking sides with his eyes on the prize.
I suspect King is assuming that this exercise in folly will turn out very badly for Republicans, and he will be happy to ram that fact down the throat of any opponent who supported the shutdown during the 2016 Republican debates.
seaboogie
I’d wager that if every Tea Party Republican was evaluated for Narcissistic Personality Disorder, we’d hear nothing but a cacophany of “DING DING DING DING DING!!!!!” This goes a long way towards explaining the absolute unreason of their positions and the fact that they are attention whores.
My therapist (who is English) and helping me cope with the fallout of being raised and then abandoned by a narcissistic mother is astonished by the fact that narcissism is actually celebrated and rewarded in this country to such a great degree.
I think that this NPD extends from the pols back to the voters that got them elected, because there is such a “crowing” about their special-ness combined with a complete lack of empathy going on. And it is interesting to note that what lies behind narcissism is a deep sense of shame.
Mnemosyne
@Cacti:
I kept thinking it was Casino, which also revolves around a senator and a denied gaming license.
Mnemosyne
Aargh! Can someone please free me from moderation for the crime of using the title of Martin Scorsese’s 1995 feature film? FYWP!
Roger Moore
@MikeJ:
This. If some of the so-called reasonable Republicans actually refused to vote for a non-clean CR and publicly said that’s what they were doing, they could bring some sanity to the situation. Instead, they go along with the herd and make the problem worse. The crazies couldn’t run the show if they didn’t have go-along-to-get-along collaborators.
Ruckus
I think people are giving the orange drunk too much credit. Saying that he knows he can’t keep this going too long, that he is only trying to protect the speakership, that he really wants to do the right thing. It sounds to me like a few rethugs see the problem or have at least had it properly explained to them and they haven’t been able to convince the speaker to act. No I’d say he is a bat shit crazy as any of them. Didn’t he once forget the stupid hastert rule? And he can’t do that again? Either he doesn’t have the votes for a clean CR no matter what or he is one of the crazy. He just isn’t that smart to be playing even one dimensional chess.
dollared
? Martin:
This is what it’s all about: With the subsidies in Obamacare, rich Americans are going to pay for poor Americans’ health care. They screwed workers out of their fair share of the profits of labor,, they stole their pension funds, they make the poor pay all the taxes for roads (gas tax) and education (sales and property tax) and Social Security, and if the rich could just avoid the cost of health care, the snatch and grab, and the divergence of interests between rich and poor, would be complete. But with this one anchor point, the rich are never scot-free. And after ten years of paying the subsidies, they’ll be screaming to cut the cost of health care and railing about the greed of doctors. It’s all about aligning the interests, and Obama got it done.
The smart Republicans see it, which is why they hired the dumb Republicans to fight this.
And this is America, the World’s Breadbasket. We can plant a million acres in popcorn, and sit back and watch the War Against Greedy Doctors unfold.
ruemara
@lamh36: If they slaughter teapublicans, I think we can all agree it was self-defense.
@Roger Moore: Shut your mouth. Bubblegum Crisis was fun.
cat48
VanHollen said today Cruz, Jim Demint/Heritage, Club for Growth and TeaBads are running the House now. This has been their strategy if you want to call it that!